EN

Synonyms for fatuous

  • adjective

Most common

silly idiotic inane witless illusory

All synonyms

Adjective

1. Inane

inane, idiotic, silly, stupid, foolish, witless, vacuous, empty-headed, moronic, asinine, daft, childish, imbecile, brainless, dumb, senseless, mindless, goofy informal US CA, unintelligent, simple, idle, soft informal

Other

illusory, crack brained

Antonyms

subtle, prudent

All antonyms of fatuous →

Definitions

  1. adj. 1

    Obnoxiously stupid; vacantly silly; content in one's foolishness.

    Near-synonyms: vacuous; see also Thesaurus:stupid

Example sentences

  • silly Tom gets confused and says silly things sometimes.
  • idiotic It's the most idiotic thing I've seen in my life.
  • inane I can't stand such number of inane trivialities.
  • illusory The difference between being and non-being is illusory.

Popularity over time

Word1850 → 2019Trend
fatuousfalling
sillyrising
idioticrising
inanerising
witlessrising
illusorysteady

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

By length

4 letters
soft1, dumb1, idle2, daft1
5 letters
silly2, goofy2, inane2
6 letters
simple2, stupid2
7 letters
foolish2, idiotic4, moronic, asinine3, vacuous3, witless2
8 letters
childish2, mindless2, imbecile3, illusory4
9 letters
senseless2, brainless2
13 letters
unintelligent

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (idle2 = 2 syllables).