SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
fatuous
adjective
Foolish in a smug or thoughtless way.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Thoughtlessly foolish
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topFatuous often suggests self-satisfaction as well as foolishness; asinine is especially insulting.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See fatuous in use
The fatuous suggestion ignored the most obvious difficulty.
A fatuous boast that the project could not fail because its leader was naturally brilliant treated self-satisfaction as a substitute for a workable plan.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license