paraprosdokians
paraprosdokians is the plural of paraprosdokian.
Meaning of paraprosdokian
Noun
paraprosdokian (plural paraprosdokians)
- A figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part.
- This style of comic poetry, a kind of parody of the Ballad, a series of quatrains generally leading up to a paraprosdokian or surprise in the fourth line, was initiated by [Oliver] Goldsmith in this merry tale.1906, J. C. Stobart, The Johnson Epoch (Epochs of English literature), volume VII, London: E. Arnold, page 144
Questions about paraprosdokians
- What is paraprosdokians the plural of?
- Paraprosdokians is the plural of paraprosdokian.
Words near paraprosdokians in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: paraprosdokians (page history and authors); paraprosdokian (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: “paraprosdokians.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paraprosdokians. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.