apophasis


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a·poph·a·sis

(ə-pŏf′ə-sĭs)
n.
Allusion to something by denying that it will be mentioned, as in I will not bring up my opponent's questionable financial dealings.

[Late Latin, from Greek, from apophanai, to say no : apo-, apo- + phanai, to say; see bhā- in Indo-European roots.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

apophasis

(əˈpɒfəsɪs)
n
(Rhetoric) rhetoric the device of mentioning a subject by stating that it will not be mentioned: I shall not discuss his cowardice or his treachery.
[C17: via Latin from Greek: denial, from apo- + phanai to say]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

apophasis

- Mentioning a subject by saying one is not going to mention it.
See also related terms for mention.
Farlex Trivia Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All rights reserved.

apophasis

a spoken or written figure in which an assertion is made in the midst of a denial, as in Mark Antony’s funeral speech for Caesar. Also called paralipsis. — apophasic, adj.
See also: Rhetoric and Rhetorical Devices
-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

apophasis

The deliberate mentioning of a subject by saying that it will not be mentioned.
Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008 by Diagram Visual Information Limited
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun 1. apophasis - mentioning something by saying it will not be mentioned
rhetorical device - a use of language that creates a literary effect (but often without regard for literal significance)
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in periodicals archive ?
The second will focus on his 'Apophasis' period, when he opened the first independent cultural centre ever in Nicosia that helped shape the intellectual life of the capital.
These are all terms that signal moments of accommodation, and do so through the rhetorical figures of apophasis or occupatio, (16) through which stating that one will not mention something achieves the same effect as actually mentioning it.
(See Figure 6.) The clever poem manages the typical sonnet addressee's resistance to the speaker's romantic advances through apophasis: what, ultimately, the no negates or even refers to is further complicated by the tensions generated in the typographically conflated I/aye.
As it functions in this book, "apophasis" is a flexible term inclusive of both "negative theology" and "deconstruction." One of the main points of this volume is that Kierkegaard's authorship opens pathways between these two resonate but often contentiously related terrains.
Nonetheless, Buber (1957, 28-30) goes beyond apophasis and clearly presumes the primacy of love when he says that love precedes and enables the true knowledge of the world, true art, true science, true philosophy, and every true deed.
Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania.
Here then is the true glory of the arts--it is a medium that is in constant flux, a constant state of apophasis. Each generation of artists feels the need to unlearn the protocols of the previous generation.
It does so in what traditional rhetoric calls an apophasis, a rhetorical device consisting in mentioning something by saying that one is not going to mention it.