apophatic
/apə(ʊ)ˈfatɪk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.43 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Pertaining to knowledge of God obtained through negation rather than positive assertions.
adj
That passively defines a thing by describing what is not characteristic of it.
Example Sentences
- "For him, the assertions of Palamas ran counter to the apophatic insistence in Pseudo-Dionysius that God was unknowable in his essence."
- "Augustine had absorbed the underlying spirit of Greek apophatic theology, but the West did not develop a fully fledged spirituality of silence until the ninth century, when the writings of an unknown Greek author were translated into Latin and achieved near-canonical status in Europe."
- "Here is a sudden interruption of remorseless, detailed exposition with a triple-punch of one-sentence paragraphs of self-indentification (2.1–2.4), and of an apophatic, negative kind, statements of what communists are not, have not, do not—[…]"
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ἀποφατικός (apophatikós, “negative”).
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /apə(ʊ)ˈfatɪk/
Inflected Forms
more apophatic (comparative)
most apophatic (superlative)