Paralepsis is a rhetorical device in which a speaker or writer claims to omit or pass over a particular point, yet simultaneously draws the audience's attention to it by raising it. The device carves itself by the tension between stated omission and actual mention — the speaker says they will not discuss something while making sure the audience thinks about it. This distinguishes it from the related figure of apophasis, where the emphasis is on raising a topic through denial of raising it. Paralepsis persists through rhetorical training, pedagogical instruction, and its continued use in legal defense and political argument. [formal: paralipsis | substrate: mind | horizon: a moment | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
paralepsis
Paralepsis is a rhetorical device in which a speaker or writer claims to omit or pass over a particular point, yet simultaneously draws the audience's attention to it by raising it. The device carves itself by the tension between stated om…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A rhetorical device in which a speaker claims to omit or pass over a point, yet draws attention to it by raising it. It is human-made as a device of deliberate composition — a strategic omission that is never actually omitted, used in persuasion, legal argument, and political discourse to plant ideas while maintaining plausible deniability.
Names and aliases
- paralepsisen · CANONICAL
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Paralepsis is a rhetorical device deliberately composed to serve rhetoric's operation — it creates emphasis through strategic omission, a technique sustained by the practice of rhetoric. By design (not incidental), it furthers the art of persuasive composition.
- cms78tcq900wfa34cou8pgdf5INSTANCE_OF →
paralepsis IS a specific kind of rhetorical figure: it is a figure of speech where the speaker deliberately omits or avoids mentioning a topic, often to draw attention to it. A competent speaker would classify it as 'a rhetorical figure.' Files against the nearest kind.
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Record identity
- Created
- Jul 30, 2026, 3:12 AM UTC
- Content hash
- acf71dd61cdb153048e7bedbc139e03a444ad3d11c718f6a46c6a624f037c1fa