percontation

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English

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WOTD – 6 April 2021

Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin percontatiō (“inquiry, questioning”), from percontor (“to interrogate, investigate”) + -tiō.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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percontation (plural percontations)

  1. (formal, rare or obsolete) A question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer like “yes” or “no”. [from early 17th c.]
    • [1623, H[enry] C[ockeram], “Percontation”, in The English Dictionarie: or, An Interpreter of Hard English VVords. […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Edmund Weauer, […], →OCLC, 1st part […], signature [H7], recto, column 2:
      Percontation. An enquiry.
      According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this is the first occurrence of the word in print.]
    • [1656, Tho[mas] Stanley, “[Zeno.] Chapter XVIII. Of Dicibles.”, in The History of Philosophy, the Second Volume, volume II, London: […] Humphrey Moseley, and Thomas Dring: […], →OCLC, 8th part (Containing the Stoick Philosophers), page 41:
      Percontation is a thing for which we cannot anſwer ſignificantly, as in Interrogation, yes: but as thus, he dwelleth in ſuch a place.]
    • 1702, “The Life of Zeno”, in The Lives of the Ancient Philosophers, Containing an Account of Their Several Sects, Doctrines, Actions, and Remarkable Sayings. […], London: […] John Nicholson, […], and Tho[mas] Newborough […], →OCLC, section VIII (Containing the Lives of the Stoick Philosophers), page 292:
      Of Dicibles (λεκτω̃ν) ſome are Defective, which have an imperfect Enunciation, as writeth; others are Perfect, as compleating the Sentence; ſome of which compleat it without Affirmation or Negation, Verity or Falſity, as in Interrogations, Percontations, Imperative Expreſſions, Adjurations, Imprecations, Wiſhes, Suppoſals, Exclamations, Compellations, and Dubitations: and others compleat the Sentence by Affirmation or Negation, and are always either true or falſe.
    • 1788 April 18, Charles H[enry] Bell, “The Press”, in History of the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire, Exeter, N.H.: [Press of J. E. Farwell & Co.], published 1888, →OCLC, page 305:
      Whoever from the preceding iconism, by percontation, deambulation, perscuitation or otherwise, shall give intelligence of the nonpareil, and will apport or communicate the same to me, shall become reciprocal of a remuneration adequate to the emolument from John Hopkinson.
      An advertisement of a lost mare from the American Herald of Liberty newspaper cited as a “farrago of turgid bombast”.
    • c. 1820s, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, chapter I, in James Robert de Jager Jackson, editor, Logic (The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; 13; Bollingen Series; LXXV), London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, published 1981, →ISBN, part 2, paragraph 3, page 108:
      In all questions of this kind or percontations, the answer cannot be given in the same words without addition or with 'not' only added, though here too the language of mankind ordinarily furnishes appropriate abbreviations.
    • 1844, S[amuel] R[offey] Maitland, “No. II”, in The Dark Ages; a Series of Essays Intended to Illustrate the State of Religion and Literature in the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries. […], 5th edition, London: […] [Gilbert and Rivington] for J. G. F. & J. Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 24:
      It is, therefore, to be so pronounced as that the first clause may be a percontation, and the second an interrogation. Between a percontation and interrogation, the ancients made this distinction—that the former admitted a variety of answers, while the latter must be replied to by 'yes' or 'no.' It must, therefore, be so read that, after the percontation—'Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?'—that which follows be pronounced in an interrogatory manner—'God that justifieth?'—that there may be a tacit answer, 'no.' And again we have the percontation—'Who is he that condemneth?' and again we interrogate—'Christ that died? or rather that is risen again? who is at the right hand of God? who also maketh intercession for us?' At each of which there is a tacit answer in the negative.
    • 1868 May 30, “The Manners of Parliament”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume 25, number 657, London: […] Spottiswoode and Co., […], →OCLC, page 706, column 1:
      His [Denis Rearden's] question, or motion, or whatever it was, only fulfils the type of the usual percontations in Parliament. He only put into a Parliamentary shape out-of-door gossip; the club talk, or omnibus talk, or comic journal talk of the hour. And this is just what all sorts of Parliament men are doing every day.
    • 1877 August, A. G. Knight, “Alfred the Great. Part the First.”, in The Month and Catholic Review, volume XI, number XLIV, London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Company and Burns and Oates, →OCLC (volume XXX, number CLVIII, overall), page 402:
      In the ninth century there was a far wider distinction between mere reading and good reading than is recognized in modern education. A reader did not deserve to be considered "good," unless he knew the mysteries of intonation and accentuation sufficiently to be able to impress upon his hearers the difference between a "percontation" and an "interrogation."
    • [1968], William E[arl] Buckler, A Preface to Our Times: Contemporary Thought in Traditional Rhetorical Forms, [New York, N.Y.]: American Book Company, →OCLC, page 232:
      His rhetorical questions and percunctations with repetition, here anaphora and epistrophe, have the urgency of a Massillon convincing a noble audience of the probability of their damnation: […]

Alternative forms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ Compare “percontation, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2018; “percontation, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

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