Meaning & use
mundanity
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Meanings
noununcountableformal
The dull, ordinary quality of everyday routine, with nothing exciting about it.
Grammar: Not used with a: the mundanity of office life.
Patterns
- the mundanity of something
She wrote poems about the mundanity of life in a small town.
He escaped the mundanity of his job by traveling at weekends.
The film finds beauty in the mundanity of washing dishes.
nouncountableformal
An ordinary, unremarkable thing or detail.
Grammar: Often plural: the mundanities of daily life.
Patterns
- the mundanities of something
Between big events, there are the mundanities of paying bills and buying groceries.
The memoir lingers over mundanities like laundry.
Parents deal with endless mundanities.
Word forms
| plural | mundanities |
|---|
Common combinations
- mundanity of daily life
- He grew tired of the mundanity of daily life.
- sheer mundanity
- The sheer mundanity of the meeting made her yawn.
- escape the mundanity
- They traveled to escape the mundanity.
- mundanity of routine
- The mundanity of routine can be comforting.
- everyday mundanities
- The novel records everyday mundanities.
Synonyms and how they differ
- banality
- It stresses the lack of originality, particularly in ideas or remarks, while mundanity focuses on dull routine.
- ordinariness
- It is neutral and may even be positive, whereas mundanity sounds slightly bored.
- tedium
- It stresses the boredom caused by dull repetition.
- monotony
- It focuses on sameness that never changes.
Opposites
Word family
- mundane adjective
- ordinary and dull
- mundanely adverb
- in an ordinary way
- mundaneness noun
- another word for mundanity
Commonly confused: mundanity or mundane?
mundanity vs mundane
Mundane is the adjective and mundanity the noun; mundane can also mean worldly as opposed to spiritual.
Practice
She wrote a novel about the ___ of office life: meetings, emails and coffee breaks.
Choose one answer.
Mundanity means dull everyday routine, which matches meetings and emails. Majesty, mystery and mobility do not describe ordinary routine.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mundanity”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.