dormitive virtue

English

Etymology

A calque translation of Latin, virtus dormitiva, coined by Molière in The Imaginary Invalid. In the play, he lampoons a group of physicians providing an explanation in macaronic Latin of the sleep-inducing properties of opium as stemming from its "virtus dormitiva".

Noun

dormitive virtue (plural dormitive virtues)

1. (idiomatic, rhetoric, logic, linguistics) A type of tautology in which an item is being explained in terms of the item itself, only put in different (usually more abstract) words.

Synonyms

• dormitive principle

Translations

rhetoric

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can:
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can:

• Finnish: virtus dormitiva (fi)
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• Latin: virtus dormitiva
• Polish: please add this translation if you can:
• Portuguese: virtude dormitiva (pt) f
• Russian: please add this translation if you can:
• Spanish: virtud dormitiva (es) f

See also

• aureation
• jargon
• skotison