Word.ws English Dictionary

prosiopesis

Syllables: pros·i·o·pe·sisUK/ˌpɹɒsɪəʊˈpiːsɪs/US/ˌpɹɑsioʊˈpisɪs/

prosiopesis is the ellipsis of the beginning of a grammatical construction.

Forms of prosiopesis

pluralprosiopeses

Origin of prosiopesis

Coined in 1917 by the Danish linguist Jens Otto Harry Jespersen: pro- (“before”) (from the Ancient Greek preposition πρό (pró)) + σιώπησις (siṓpēsis, “taciturnity”) (from σιωπάω (siōpáō, “to be silent”)) + -σις (-sis), (-sis, suffix forming nouns of action).

Words that rhyme with prosiopesis

13 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about prosiopesis

What is prosiopesis the ellipsis of?
Prosiopesis is the ellipsis of the beginning of a grammatical construction.
How do you pronounce prosiopesis?
Prosiopesis is pronounced /ˌpɹɒsɪəʊˈpiːsɪs/ (UK).

Words near prosiopesis in the dictionary

  1. prosinesses
  2. prosing
  3. prosingly
  4. prosings
  5. prosiopeses
  6. prosiopesis
  7. prosiopetic
  8. prosiphon
  9. prosiphons
  10. Prosise
  11. Prosises

Source and license

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