What does incongruous mean?
Word: Incongruous
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Incongruous means strange or out of place because it does not suit the things around it.
Synonyms: out of place, odd, inappropriate
Word origin: From Latin, and in use in English since the early 1600s.
How do you spell incongruous?
Syllables: in - con - gru - ous
Tricky part: The ending is where marks are lost. Many students leave out the u that sits just before ous, because it barely sounds in quick speech.
Watch out for: incongrous, incongruos, incongruious
Memory tip: Ambiguous, conspicuous and incongruous keep the same company: each holds on to a u right before ous.
Incongruous in a sentence
Example 1: A single pink balloon looked incongruous in the grey, serious meeting room.
Example 2: The shiny glass tower looks incongruous among the old stone houses of the hill town.
Example 3: Aditi wore hiking boots with her silk saree, an incongruous pair that made everyone smile.
Fun Fact
One long-standing theory of humour says we laugh at the incongruous, at things that turn up where we least expect them.
Practise the CREST Way
Spellacadabra
Choose the correct option to make a meaningful word:
in___gruous
a) cun
b) con
c) can
d) kon
Show answer
b) con. The stem here opens just as concert and contest do.
Word Puzzle
Match each word with its opposite:
1. incongruous 2. lucid 3. sparse a. fitting b. abundant c. muddled
a) 1-a, 2-c, 3-b
b) 1-b, 2-c, 3-a
c) 1-c, 2-a, 3-b
d) 1-b, 2-a, 3-c
Show answer
a) 1-a, 2-c, 3-b. A lucid talk is the reverse of a muddled one, and sparse grass is the reverse of an abundant crop.
Jumble Tumble
What is the meaning of the word that can be formed from the given letters?
ougnisronuc
a) impossible to believe
b) hard to see or to notice
c) too many to be counted
d) sitting oddly with its surroundings
Show answer
d) sitting oddly with its surroundings. The letters rebuild a long adjective for something that jars with what surrounds it.
Word Champ
Read the statements and choose the correct option:
1. A tractor parked on a ballroom floor would look incongruous. 2. A treatise is a short spoken joke. 3. A quorum is the smallest number of members needed for a meeting to go ahead.
a) all three are true
b) only 2 and 3 are true
c) only 2 is true
d) only 1 and 3 are true
Show answer
d) only 1 and 3 are true. A treatise is a long piece of writing on a subject, so that statement fails.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A film director calls one scene incongruous. What is her complaint?
a) It runs longer than the rest of the film.
b) It cost more than the rest of the film.
c) It does not match the rest of the film.
d) It was shot before the rest of the film.
Show answer
c) It does not match the rest of the film.
2. In the phrase 'a loud tie, incongruous with his plain grey suit', what is the tie doing?
a) clashing with the suit
b) hiding part of the suit
c) fading like the suit
d) matching the suit
Show answer
a) clashing with the suit
