jejune
/dʒɪˈdʒuːn
/- Every time there's an event that brings forth a manifestation of religious belief by large numbers of people, some militant secularist or other will give out an opinion that would be jejune coming from an intelligent sixth-former.
- Like Whitman's poetry, Elvrum's lyrics are often as elementary as a child's jejune rambling, and yet, in their simplicity, they're sturdy, sophisticated, and poignantly inquisitive.
- We've all perfected the wasp-wave; you flick your hand with a disinterested languor - just think Oscar Wilde dismissing a jejune insult - and the wind distracts the wasp for a second or two.
- Seldon's authors, half of them academics, half journalists, are competent and fall down only in their often jejune judgments.
- Contemporary reflections on Stauffenberg risk seeming rather jejune.
Derivatives
jejunely
- Bon Voyage tries, further, to propose that sociopolitical chaos and dramatic farce may be synonymous, but such a conceit is jejunely clever more than it is morally adventurous.
- However, the French law is rooted in a century-old tradition of separating church and state that cannot and should not be jejunely abandoned.
- And this is so jejunely expressed that it is far from clear that it is really inconsistent with what he is dismissing.
jejuneness
/ noun ...- The final ‘nah-nah-nah-nah’ chorus from Hey Jude was the sonic statement of its jejuneness.’
- Philosophy is Atheistic or Christian, poetry is Catholic, and egotistic and mercantile jejuneness are Protestant.
- Their outward jejuneness belies an insatiable evil within and that makes them perfect monsters (no makeup needed) that scare us mostly because they take their jobs so seriously and work around the clock to perfect their skills.
Origin
Early 17th century: from Latin jejunus 'fasting, barren'. The original sense was 'without food', hence 'not intellectually nourishing'.
dinner from Middle English:
Our words dine (Middle English) and dinner are both from the same root, Old French desjeuner ‘to have breakfast’, which survives in modern French as déjeuner, ‘lunch’, and petit déjeuner, ‘breakfast’. The root was jëun ‘fasting’, which goes back to Latin jejunus ‘fasting, barren’ found also in jejune (early 17th century) which originally meant ‘without food’ and then ‘not intellectually nourishing’. In Australia, New Zealand, and Canada to be done like a dinner is to be utterly defeated or outwitted—the British equivalent is done like a kipper. The messy and unappetizing appearance of food set out for a dog is behind the expressions a dog's dinner (or breakfast), meaning ‘a poor piece of work’ a mess', and dressed up like a dog's dinner, ‘wearing ridiculously smart or ostentatious clothes’, which date from the 1930s.