inanity

noun

Etymology: From French inanité, from Latin inānitās (“emptiness”), equivalent to inane + -ity.

1. The property of being inane, of lacking material of interest or satisfaction, emptiness.

   “All those who criticise the inanity of the effort required by the stemmatic approach without clearly adopting a position of their own, do not, in my view, touch upon the core of the problem […]”

2. Something that is inane.

   “Working in any bureaucracy means being bedeviled by inanities daily.”

   “It was incessant matter for amazement how these Olympians would talk over our heads - during meals, for instance - of this or the other social or political inanity, under the delusion that these pale phantasms of reality were among the importances of life.”