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aposiopeses

aposiopeses is the plural of aposiopesis.

Meaning of aposiopesis

Noun

aposiopesis (countable and uncountable, plural aposiopeses)

  1. (rhetoric) An abrupt breaking-off in speech, often indicated in print using an ellipsis (…) or an em dash (—).
    • —"My ſiſter, mayhap," quoth my uncle Toby, "does not chooſe to let a man come ſo near her ****" Make this daſh—'tis an Apoſiopeſis.—Take the daſh away, and write Backſide,—'tis Bawdy.1759, [Laurence Sterne], chapter VI, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 2nd (1st London) edition, volume II, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], published 1760, →OCLC...
    Synonyms:
    reticence

Questions about aposiopeses

What is aposiopeses the plural of?
Aposiopeses is the plural of aposiopesis.

Words near aposiopeses in the dictionary

  1. aposematism
  2. aposematisms
  3. aposepalous
  4. aposiderophore
  5. aposiderophores
  6. aposiopeses
  7. aposiopesis
  8. aposiopestic
  9. aposiopetic
  10. aposomatic
  11. aposome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: aposiopeses (page history and authors); aposiopesis (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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