paradessence

paradessence noun: the quality of appealing to and promising to satisfy multiple contradictory desires.

Noun

paradessence (plural paradessences)

The quality of appealing to and promising to satisfy multiple contradictory desires.
- The paradessence of coffee is stimulation and relaxation. Every successful ad campaign for coffee will promise both of those mutually exclusive states.“ Chas snaps his fingers in front of her face. ”That’s what consumer motivation is about, Ursula. Every product has this paradoxical essence. Two...2001, Alex Shakar, The Savage Girl, →ISBN
- The marketer's task, therefore, is to manage this tension, this broken soul, this bifurcated core, this paradessence of a product or service.2004, Stephen Brown, Free Gift Inside!!: Forget the Customer. Develop Marketease, →ISBN, page 53

The paradessence of coffee is stimulation and relaxation.2001, Alex Shakar, The Savage Girl, →ISBN:
It is probable that, given how gender formations work in America today, so powerful a paradessence would have to appear in the form of a woman, rather than a (heterosexual) man.2008, Steven Shaviro, “An Issue That Won’t Go Away”, in The Pinocchio Theory:

plural	paradessences

Blend of paradox + essence, coined by Alex Shakar in 2001.

What does paradessence mean?: Paradessence means the quality of appealing to and promising to satisfy multiple contradictory desires.
How do you use paradessence in a sentence?: The paradessence of coffee is stimulation and relaxation.
What part of speech is paradessence?: Paradessence is a noun.
What is the plural of paradessence?: The plural of paradessence is paradessences.

Adapted from Wiktionary: paradessence (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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