Word.ws English Dictionary

asteismus

asteismus noun: witty dialog or response.

Noun

asteismus (uncountable)

  1. (rhetoric) Witty dialog or response.
  2. (rhetoric) In dialog, a retort based on a punning use of another speaker's word or metaphor.

Forms of asteismus

alternative formastysmus
alternative formastismus

Origin of asteismus

From Latin astĕïsmŏs (“the more refined style of speaking”), from Ancient Greek ἀστείσμός (asteísmós).

Questions about asteismus

What does asteismus mean?
Asteismus means witty dialog or response.
What part of speech is asteismus?
Asteismus is a noun.

Words near asteismus in the dictionary

  1. asteer
  2. asteiid
  3. asteiids
  4. asteism
  5. asteisms
  6. asteismus
  7. asteistic
  8. astelia
  9. astelias
  10. astelic
  11. astelioid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: asteismus (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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Cite this entry: “asteismus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/asteismus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.