immateriality

noun

im·​ma·​te·​ri·​al·​i·​ty ˌi-mə-ˌtir-ē-ˈa-lə-tē 

plural immaterialities

1

: the quality or state of being immaterial

2

: something immaterial

Synonyms

• inconsequence
• inconsequentiality
• inconsiderableness
• insignificance
• insignificancy
• littleness
• negligibility
• nullity
• pettiness
• slightness
• smallness
• triviality

Examples of immateriality in a Sentence

the cost of such a lavish affair may be a matter of some immateriality to the wedding planner, but not to the person who has to foot the bill

Recent Examples on the Web

The material’s very immateriality disguises the building’s mass, somehow making the immense, mountainous structure appear as light as a balloon, an extraordinary feat. —Mark Lamster, Dallas News, 1 June 2023

McCarthy has pocketed his own liturgical, ecstatic style as one would a coin, a ring, a key, in the service of a more demanding and heartless inquiry through mathematics and physics into the immateriality, the indeterminacy, of reality. —Joy Williams, Harper’s Magazine , 14 Dec. 2022

Grosse uses industrial spray paint on thin fabric, which is hung, not stretched, giving the painting a kind of liminal immateriality. —Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 29 July 2019

This is a small, quiet show that potently traverses realms of materiality and immateriality, connecting ideas about what’s seen and unseen, and what’s in-between. —Gayle Clemans, The Seattle Times, 7 Aug. 2018

In her immateriality, Melania well represents the status of women under Trump — absent, frozen out, erased from the picture. —Rhonda Garelick, The Cut, 11 June 2018

For all their seeming immateriality, the internet and the cloud rely on a vast industrial infrastructure consisting of data centers linked through a sprawling network of fiber optics. —James Glanz, New York Times, 18 Sep. 2017

Word History

First Known Use

1570, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for immateriality

• confidentiality
• constitutionality
• individuality
• intellectuality
• intersectionality
• intertextuality
• referentiality
• superficiality
• territoriality
• abnormality
• cardinality
• commonality