From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe absurdthe absurdsomething that is completely stupid and unreasonable Some of the stories he tells verge on the absurd. → absurdthe Absurdthe Absurd (also the Theatre of the Absurd) a style of play for the theatre that was developed in the 1950s by writers such as Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco, whose work expresses the belief that there is no God, and that human existence has no meaning or purpose. These plays are very different from traditional theatre. The characters do not communicate effectively with each other, and often their words do not make sense. Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot is the best-known example of this type of theatre. → Absurd
