unreason means lack of reason or rationality; unreasonableness; irrationality. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 81 out of 100.
Why “unreason” is a great word
UNREASON — [Noun] A lack of reason or rationality; irrationality or absurdity. From Middle English unreson, equivalent to the prefix un- ("not, opposite of") + reason ("the power of the mind to think logically"). First recorded in use 1250–1300. Unlike "irrationality," which denotes a flawed state of logic, or "folly," which suggests a foolish act with moral overtones, unreason is the active principle, the void where logic should be. It is the fever dream that rewrites the logic of a room, the collective fervor that makes atrocity seem banal, and the immutable belief that thrives on its own disproof—the stark, inhabitable fact of reason's total eclipse.
noun
- Lack of reason or rationality; unreasonableness; irrationality.“c. 1566, John Knox, The Historie of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland, Book I, London: 1644,
Another day the same Frier made another Sermon of the Abbot of Unreason, unto whom, and whose Laws, he compareth Prelats of that age; for they were subject to no Laws, no more than was the Abbot of Unreason.”
- Nonsense; folly; absurdity.
verb
- To prove to be unreasonable; disprove by argument.“The reason of the unreasonable usage my reason has met with, so unreasons my reason, that I have reason to complain of your beauty :" and how did he enjoy the following flower of composition ! "”
- To apply false logic or think without logic.“After some trouble I have got the Programme, and now send it on to you ; I beg you to transcribe the first ten pages, in which he reasons, or rather unreasons, about homeopathy, and then send the Programme back to me, as I do not know how to procure another copy.”
- To make unreasonable; to deprive of reason.“Unbelief unreasons a man: so the Apostle joyns them, when he prays to be delivered from unreasonable men; for all men have not faith.”