Meaning
A statement or conclusion that does not follow from what preceded it: in logic, an inference its premises do not support; in everyday speech, a remark so unrelated to what came just before that it sounds absurd or comic. The conversational sense now dominates general English and often carries a humorous charge absent from the technical logic term. Neutral and technical in logic, wry or bewildered in conversation; often italicized in formal prose. Regional use: General English (borrowed from Latin).
Origin
Latin, literally 'it does not follow': non 'not' plus sequitur, third-person singular of sequi 'to follow', a verb from the same Indo-European root as English sequence, consequence, and segue. It entered English in the 1530s (Online Etymology Dictionary; Random House gives 1530-40) as a logician's term for an inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises. Dictionary.com documents the later broadening to anything said or written that is unrelated to what immediately precedes, and Wikipedia treats the deliberate non sequitur as a comic literary device prized for its absurdity.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- non sequiturs
Usage Examples
- The essay's final paragraph is a non sequitur, invoking Mars colonies in a discussion of pension reform.
- His emails were a string of non sequiturs, each sentence starting a new and stranger thought.
- 'I guess that settles it,' she said, in reply to what everyone else felt was a complete non sequitur.