Meaning of percontation | Babel Free

Definitions

A question which cannot properly be given a one-word answer like “yes” or “no”.

formal, obsolete, rare

Equivalents

Examples

“Percontation. An enquiry.”

“Percontation is a thing for which we cannot anſwer ſignificantly, as in Interrogation, yes: but as thus, he dwelleth in ſuch a place.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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."”

“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: […]”

CEFR level