One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
1Naive, simplistic, and superficial.‘their entirely predictable and usually jejune opinions’
immature, inexperienced, naive, green, as green as grass, born yesterday, raw, unseasoned, untrained, untriednaive, simple, innocent, artless, guileless, unworldly, childlike, ingenuous, unsophisticatedView synonyms
- ‘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.’
- ‘The soprano playing the part of the Woodbird clumsily ‘flies’ a replica avian on a fishing rod - the whole scene looks jejune and ridiculous.’
- ‘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.’
- ‘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.’
- ‘You have to ask yourself why is that and quite frankly when it comes to Tracey, although one or two of her pieces have a certain odd, jejune quality, her art work is essentially a peg on which she hangs her media persona which is her main work.’
2(of ideas or writings) dry and uninteresting.‘the poem seems to me rather jejune’
boring, dull, dull as ditchwater, tedious, drearyView synonyms
- ‘Contemporary reflections on Stauffenberg risk seeming rather jejune.’
- ‘Or perhaps your superiors realized that your rhetoric is sloppy, tendentious, jejune and banal, and they think - correctly - that this reflects on your employer, the FBI.’
- ‘Seldon's authors, half of them academics, half journalists, are competent and fall down only in their often jejune judgments.’
Early 17th century: from Latin jejunus ‘fasting, barren’. The original sense was ‘without food’, hence ‘not intellectually nourishing’.
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