adoxograph

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English

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Etymology

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From New Latin adoxus (absurd, paradoxical) from Ancient Greek ἄδοξος (ádoxos, obscure, ignoble) (from ἀ- (a-, not) + δόξα (dóxa, expectation)) +‎ -graph.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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adoxograph (plural adoxographs)

  1. (rhetoric) A work of adoxography.
    • 1989, Friedrich [Wilhelm] Nietzsche with Sander L. Gilman, Carole Blair, David J. Parent, editors & translators, Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN:
      Polycrates, disciple of Gorgias, wrote in praise of mice, pots, pebbles. Others of bees, salt, those are the Adoxographs. Dio Chrysostomos has a praise of mosquitoes, parrots, and hair. Lucian, praise of the fly.
    • 2005, John W. Velz, “Adoxography as Mode of Discourse for Satan and His Underlings in Medieval Plays”, in Clifford Davidson, editor, The Dramatic Tradition of the Middle Ages [AMS Studies in the Middle Ages; 26], New York, N.Y.: AMS Press, →ISBN, pages 98, 102 and 105:
      [A]udiences laugh heartily because the adoxographs, if done with mock seriousness, are a broad form of irony, related to sarcasm. [] In the N-Town Passion Play I, Lucifer is an implied presenter of the play and an implied controller of its events. He addresses the audience directly and confidentially in an extraordinary 124-line adoxograph which is part social satire and part seriocomic plea for our commitment to his suzerainty [] The diabolical adoxographs that have been identified here are collectively an analogue of such cosmic symmetries as those in Dante [Alighieri] []
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