Definition of "absurdity"

And it is a fact that in these two days the boy had almost talked over his mother, too; had parried all her objections one after another with that indignant good sense which is often the perfection of absurdity …

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 7, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850

The absurdity of the actual idea of an infinite number

1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […]

Neither [Jones] […] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."

1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, page viii

There's credit too for highlighting the problems of Manchester's Castlefield Corridor, where he showed the absurdity of building Ordsall Chord to feed more trains into the congested corridor without upgrading the corridor itself.

2023 July 12, Philip Haigh, “Narrow narrative overlooks past and present achievements”, in RAIL, number 987, page 50