ennui

noun

ˌän-ˈwē How to pronounce ennui (audio)
Definition of ennuinext
as in boredom
the state of being bored the kind of ennui that comes from having too much time on one's hands and too little will to find something productive to do

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ennui My audience would laugh one instant, and then with the alchemical dark arts of my verbal prowess, they’d be volta’d into grief and ennui with breakneck speed. — Literary Hub, 6 July 2026 Before there was The Office—British or American—there was Office Space, Mike Judge’s razor-sharp satire of middle-American corporate ennui. — Air Mail, 4 July 2026 At first Zeke seems the very embodiment of older generations’ complaints about GenZ ennui, but Rice isn’t taking cheap shots — not least since since his elders-but-not-wisers get no more flattering a portrait once George (Camp) enters the scene. — Guy Lodge, Variety, 19 June 2026 White’s actorly presence comes through in his vocal performance, lending the beleaguered fighter a sense of depressed world-weariness and poignant ennui. — Katie Walsh, Twin Cities, 23 May 2026 See All Example Sentences for ennui
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ennui
boredom
Noun
  • Take us to that moment, this middle-age malaise, this boredom.
    — Longreads, Longreads, 18 Aug. 2026
  • Her boredom was sharpened by the discovery that most of her initial assumptions were wrong.
    — Madhuri Vijay, New Yorker, 16 Aug. 2026
Definition of boredom

Browse Nearby Words

ennobling
ennui
enormity
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Cite this Entry

“Ennui.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ennui. Accessed 1 Sep. 2026.

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