What does aposiopeses mean?
Aposiopeses is the plural of aposiopesis, a term from classical rhetoric describing the sudden breaking-off of a sentence before its natural conclusion. The word comes from Greek roots meaning 'becoming silent', and the device works precisely because of what is left unsaid: a speaker overcome by emotion may stop mid-thought — 'I shall never forgive him, I swear that I will—' — or may deliberately trail off so that the audience completes the idea themselves. Writers and orators have exploited this effect since antiquity; it appears in the Bible, in Shakespeare's speeches, and throughout modern literature as a way of conveying intensity, reticence, or menace. Because the unfinished statement invites the listener's imagination to supply the ending, an aposiopesis can be more powerful than a fully articulated claim. The term belongs chiefly to formal discussion of rhetoric, stylistics, and literary analysis, where critics often count and compare the aposiopeses in a given author's work.
nounAposiopeses is the plural of 'aposiopesis', denoting instances of the rhetorical device in which a speaker suddenly breaks off in mid-sentence, leaving the thought deliberately unfinished. The interruption typically implies that the speaker is too overcome with emotion to continue, or that the unstated conclusion is self-evident.
- An instance of suddenly breaking off in the middle of a sentence, leaving it unfinished, especially for rhetorical or emotional effect.
"The senator's speech was punctuated by dramatic aposiopeses, each sentence trailing off just before its most damning point."
"Her letter ended in one of those aposiopeses that say more than any completed sentence could: 'If you ever come back, I—'."
"The professor noted how Dickens used aposiopeses to let readers imagine horrors too terrible to describe."
This is already the plural form; the singular is 'aposiopesis'. The plural is preferred when discussing multiple occurrences of the device within a text or across an author's works.
"The critic counted seventeen aposiopeses in the novel's final chapter alone."
When Mark Antony says 'I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know' and then stops short, he's wielding an aposiopesis — rhetoric's most artful way of not saying something.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of aposiopeses
Aposiopesis derives from ancient Greek ἀποσιώπησις (aposiōpēsis), formed from apo- ('away from') and siōpē ('silence'), literally meaning 'a becoming silent'. The term entered Latin rhetorical theory via writers such as Quintilian, who classified it among the figures of speech, and passed into English usage during the Renaissance period, when classical rhetoric was widely studied. Its plural, aposiopeses, follows the standard Greek-derived pattern for nouns ending in -sis. Other English words beginning with the same Greek prefix apo- include apogee, apostasy, and apocrypha, though they share only the prefix rather than the full root.
Related word forms
How aposiopeses is actually used
Strictly a technical term of rhetoric and literary criticism, encountered mainly in academic writing rather than everyday speech. It is almost always used in its plural form when discussing multiple occurrences of the device in a text.
Easily confused with aposiopeses
In rhetoric, an ellipsis is a deliberate omission of words whose meaning is still understood, whereas an aposiopesis abruptly breaks off the utterance altogether, leaving the ending unstated.