"percontation" meaning in English

See percontation in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌpɜːkɒnˈteɪʃn̩/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˌpɝkənˈteɪʃ(ə)n/ [General-American] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-percontation.wav [Southern-England] Forms: percontations [plural]
enPR: pûr'kŏntāʹshən Rhymes: -eɪʃən Etymology: Learned borrowing from Latin percontatiō (“inquiry, questioning”), from percontor (“to interrogate, investigate”) + -tiō. Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*ḱent-}}, {{lbor|en|la|percontatiō|t=inquiry, questioning}} Learned borrowing from Latin percontatiō (“inquiry, questioning”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} percontation (plural percontations)
  1. (formal, rare or obsolete) A question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer like “yes” or “no”. Tags: formal, obsolete, rare Synonyms: percunctation [obsolete, rare] Related terms: percontatorial [obsolete], percontative, punctus percontativus Translations (question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer): enquête [feminine] (French), Nachforschung [feminine] (German), Nachfrage [feminine] (German), interrogazione [feminine] (Italian), busca [feminine] (Portuguese), interrogação [feminine] (Portuguese), ymchwiliad [masculine] (Welsh), ymofyniad (Welsh)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for percontation meaning in English (8.5kB)

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      "expansion": "Learned borrowing from Latin percontatiō (“inquiry, questioning”)",
      "name": "lbor"
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  "etymology_text": "Learned borrowing from Latin percontatiō (“inquiry, questioning”), from percontor (“to interrogate, investigate”) + -tiō.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "percontations",
      "tags": [
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      "args": {},
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.",
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          "text": "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.\nAn advertisement of a lost mare from the American Herald of Liberty newspaper cited as a “farrago of turgid bombast”.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "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, part 2, paragraph 3, page 108",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "[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",
          "text": "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: […]",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "id": "en-percontation-en-noun-taY6aaC-",
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          "given",
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        [
          "one",
          "one#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "word",
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        [
          "answer",
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        ],
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          "yes",
          "yes#Particle"
        ],
        [
          "no",
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        "(formal, rare or obsolete) A question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer like “yes” or “no”."
      ],
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          "tags": [
            "obsolete"
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          "word": "percontatorial"
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          "word": "percontative"
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          "word": "punctus percontativus"
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          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "enquête"
        },
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          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Nachforschung"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Nachfrage"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
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        },
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          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
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        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
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          "word": "interrogação"
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          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
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          ],
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        },
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          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
          "word": "ymofyniad"
        }
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      "tags": [
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      "ipa": "/ˌpɝkənˈteɪʃ(ə)n/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
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      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (Southern England)"
    },
    {
      "enpr": "pûr'kŏntāʹshən"
    }
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  "word": "percontation"
}
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      "name": "lbor"
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  "etymology_text": "Learned borrowing from Latin percontatiō (“inquiry, questioning”), from percontor (“to interrogate, investigate”) + -tiō.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "percontations",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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      "args": {},
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "tags": [
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      "word": "percontatorial"
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      "word": "percontative"
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        "English formal terms",
        "English learned borrowings from Latin",
        "English lemmas",
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        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱent-",
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        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with rare senses",
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      ],
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          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.",
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          "text": "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.\nAn advertisement of a lost mare from the American Herald of Liberty newspaper cited as a “farrago of turgid bombast”.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "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, part 2, paragraph 3, page 108",
          "text": "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.",
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          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "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",
          "text": "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.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
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          "text": "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: […]",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "A question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer like “yes” or “no”."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "question#Noun"
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        [
          "properly",
          "properly"
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        "(formal, rare or obsolete) A question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer like “yes” or “no”."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "formal",
        "obsolete",
        "rare"
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      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-percontation.wav",
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      "tags": [
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "enquête"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Nachforschung"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Nachfrage"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "interrogazione"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "busca"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "interrogação"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "ymchwiliad"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer",
      "word": "ymofyniad"
    }
  ],
  "word": "percontation"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (384852d and db5a844). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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