anacrisis
anacrisis noun: a stage of the Ancient Greek judicial process in which all of the evidence is produced prior to the trial.
Noun
anacrisis (plural anacrises)
- A stage of the Ancient Greek judicial process in which all of the evidence is produced prior to the trial.
- If the plaintiff failed to appear at the anacrisis, the suit, of course, fell to the 'ground; if the defendant made default, judgment passed against him.1853, William Smith, A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, page 132
- It is not in the court of an unaccusing conscience that I am declared righteous, but in the wider sphere of Christ's anacrisis or preliminary scrutiny, for He now takes note of my work, that He may judge a righteous judgment in the great Day.'1881, Frederic Charles Cook, The Holy Bible, According to the Authorized Version
- An interrogation that provokes its subject to make explicit his or her underlying assumptions and deeply held values.
- Socrates is the archetypal high master of subtle, ironic anacrisis.1985, Aaron Fogel, Coercion to Speak: Conrad's Poetics of Dialogue, →ISBN, page 29
- In explicating this work, Zappen points to the work of engaged listening, which can manifest itself in anacrisis, the critical testing of one's views, and/or syncrisis, the critical comparison of opposing views.2005 Spring, Michael Svoboda, “The Rebirth of Dialogue: Bakhtin, Socrates, and the Rhetorical Tradition by James P. Zappen”, in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, volume 35, number 2
- A dialog or plot event that causes a character to reveal his or her beliefs and motivations.
- As Bakhtin points out, the "classical Christian dialogic syncrises" (dyads) of the tempted and the tempter, the believer and the nonbeliever, the righteous and the sinner, the beggar and the rich man, etc., as well as the "corresponding anacrises" ("provocations through discourse or plot...1998, Terence J. Martin, Living Words: Studies in Dialogues Over Religion, →ISBN, page 228
- A genre of “ultimate questions of worldview,” it features internal and external dialogue, including the anacrisis or provocation of a word by others' words, and a utopian vision.2010, P Fambrough, “Ionesco's Rhinocéros and the Menippean Tradition”, in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, volume 34, number 1
Examples of anacrisis in a sentence
- The litigant then, in making his speech, when he wished to cite the law in support of his argument, could call on the clerk of the court to read the extracts which he had put in at the anacrisis.1895, Percy Gardner, Frank Byron Jevons, A Manual of Greek Antiquities - Volume 1, page 527:
- In identifying the weak spot in Fanny – her longing for Mother and home – Edmund entices her to speak: he is practising anacrisis.2013, Ulf Olsson, Silence and Subject in Modern Literature:
Forms of anacrisis
| plural | anacrises |
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Questions about anacrisis
- What does anacrisis mean?
- Anacrisis means a stage of the Ancient Greek judicial process in which all of the evidence is produced prior to the trial.
- How do you use anacrisis in a sentence?
- The litigant then, in making his speech, when he wished to cite the law in support of his argument, could call on the clerk of the court to read the extracts which he had put in at the anacrisis.
- What part of speech is anacrisis?
- Anacrisis is a noun.
- What is the plural of anacrisis?
- The plural of anacrisis is anacrises.
Words near anacrisis in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: anacrisis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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