mycterism
/ˈmɪktəɹɪzəm/
mycterism noun: a subtle or scornful jibe.
Noun
mycterism (plural mycterisms)
- A subtle or scornful jibe.
- But he recovers himself soon, if only by the dry fashion in which he observes that, if anybody does not know it, the Greeks call certain kinds of allegory sarcasm, asteism, antiphasis, and parœmia, to which it may be well to at mycterism, a kind of derision which is dissembled, but not altogether...1922, George Saintsbury, A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe from the earliest texts to the present day, page 301
- As he makes clear, he has quite a few such “nauseatingly gross figures of clay” in mind, turning the irony or sarcasm of a specific instant into widespread mycterism—broad disdain pronounced with a sneer.2013, J. Phillipson, C.P. Cavafy Historical Poems
Forms of mycterism
| plural | mycterisms |
|---|
Origin of mycterism
From Ancient Greek μυκτηρισμός (muktērismós), from μυκτηρίζω (muktērízō, “I sneer”), from μυκτήρ (muktḗr, “nostril”).
Questions about mycterism
- What does mycterism mean?
- Mycterism means a subtle or scornful jibe.
- What part of speech is mycterism?
- Mycterism is a noun.
- How do you pronounce mycterism?
- Mycterism is pronounced /ˈmɪktəɹɪzəm/.
- What is the plural of mycterism?
- The plural of mycterism is mycterisms.
Words near mycterism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mycterism (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: “mycterism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mycterism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.