Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Grammar A construction in which a noun or noun phrase is placed with another as an explanatory equivalent, both having the same syntactic relation to the other elements in the sentence; for example, Copley and the painter in The painter Copley was born in Boston.
- n. Grammar The relationship between such nouns or noun phrases.
- n. A placing side by side or next to each other.
- n. Biology The growth of successive layers of a cell wall.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of adding to or together; a setting to; application; a placing together; juxtaposition.
- n. In grammar: The relation to a noun (or pronoun) of another noun, or in some cases of an adjective or a clause, that is added to it by way of explanation or characterization. Thus, “Cicero, the famous orator, lived in the first century before Christ”; “On him, their second Providence, they hung.” In languages that distinguish cases, the noun in apposition is in the same case as the word to which it is apposed. The same term is also used of an adjective that stands to the noun (or pronoun) to which it refers in a less close relation than the proper attributive, being added rather parenthetically, or by way of substitute for a qualifying clause. Thus, “They sang Darius, great and good”; “Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.” Rarely, it is applied to a clause, whether substantive or adjective, that qualifies a noun (or pronoun) in an equivalent manner. Compare
attributive and predicative. - n. The relation of two or more nouns (or a noun and pronoun) in the same construction, under the above conditions. Knights Templars, lords justices, Paul the apostle, my son John's book (where son is also possessive, the sign of the possessive case being required only with the final term), are examples of nouns in apposition; “I Jesus have sent mine angel” (Rev. xxii. 16) is an example of a pronoun and noun in apposition.
- n. . In rhetoric, the addition of a parallel word or phrase by way of explanation or illustration of another.
- A public disputation or examination: now used only as a name of Speech Hay in St. Paul's School, London.
Wiktionary
- n. grammar A construction in which one noun or noun phrase is placed with another as an explanatory equivalent, either having the same syntactic function in the sentence.
- n. The relationship between such nouns or noun phrases.
- n. The quality of being side-by-side, apposed instead of being opposed, not being front-to-front but next to each other.
- n. A placing of two things side by side, or the fitting together of two things.
- n. In biology, the growth of successive layers of a cell wall.
- n. rhetoric Appositio
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The act of adding; application; accretion.
- n. The putting of things in juxtaposition, or side by side; also, the condition of being so placed.
- n. (Gram.) The state of two nouns or pronouns, put in the same case, without a connecting word between them; as, I admire Cicero, the orator. Here, the second noun explains or characterizes the first.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a grammatical relation between a word and a noun phrase that follows
- n. (biology) growth in the thickness of a cell wall by the deposit of successive layers of material
- n. the act of positioning close together (or side by side)
Etymologies
- Middle English apposicioun, from Latin appositiō, appositiōn-, from appositus, past participle of appōnere, to put near; see apposite. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“An alternative for 4a, assuming we mean Alia Shawkat to be in apposition, is to repeat the preposition:”
“Choirs" is so obviously in apposition with "boughs" in the line above ( "Upon those boughs which shake against the cold") that I wonder how anyone could think to take it otherwise than "I am now an old man who not so very long ago was much like a blossoming tree in whose boughs birds warbled sweetly.”
“Thus the clause, "things which are not" (are regarded as naught), is in apposition with "foolish ... weak ... base (that is, lowborn) and despised things.”
“Rather, "the glory of the country" is in apposition with "cities" which immediately precedes, and the names of which presently follow.”
“This verse is not, as some read it, in apposition with "the end of their conversation" (Heb 13: 7), but forms the transition.”
“Ec 1: 12 shows that "king of Jerusalem" is in apposition, not with "David," but”
“I, even my hands -- so Hebrew (Ps 41: 2), "Thou ... thy hand" (both nominatives, in apposition).”
“I-- literally, "I ... my soul," in apposition; the faithful Jews here speak individually.”
“Arabs are hereby referred to (compare Jer 25: 23; 49: 32), as the words in apposition show, "that dwell in the wilderness." uncircumcised ... uncircumcised in the heart -- The addition of "in the heart" in Israel's case marks its greater guilt in proportion to its greater privileges, as compared with the rest.”
“What an empty boast seems that Romanus civis declaration of Lord Palmerston when put in apposition with the history of British transactions with the first of Spanish American Republics!”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘apposition’.
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INTERP - terminology management terms
Terms from the fields of terminology, lexicography, lexicology and corpus linguistics
reworder, rewording, parser, parsing, tagger, tagging, aligner, aligning, content analysis, content analyzer, corpus management, glossary and 546 more...
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Rhetorical Devices
trope, wellerism, antimetabole, syncope, open-list, accismus, abating, abbaser, abecedarian, abcisio, ablatio, abominatio and 425 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
tatterdemalion, panopticon, idioglossia, hypnagogue, hypnopomp, defenestration, anacoluthon, scofflaw, affront, edifying, palimpsest, naufrage and 475 more...
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GRE vocab
martinet, churlish, polyglot, aplomb, dissembler, histrionics, prevarication, ignominy, impugn, fastidious, trenchant, perfunctory and 155 more...
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English
vorciferous, vituperative, vitriolic, vitiation, vitiated, virulent, venerate, vanguard, viands, unimpeachable, unctuous, unanimity and 398 more...
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words to know
proselytising, proprioception, qualia, indelibly, eristic, mellifluous, perspicacious, concilience, inure, tendentiousness, topos, parochial and 118 more...
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Words next
patrimony, cacophony, fearsome, coruscating, coruscating, coruscating, dolomite, dolorous, transdermal, chatty cathy, chatterbox, incessantly and 249 more...
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INTERP - VOCABULARY
The vocabulary of conference interpreting. I commend this list to those who want to know more about the profession and to those who wish to organize their knowledge about the profession. To aspirin...
retour language, A-language, B-language, C-language, relay language, take sy on relay, language booth, booth meeting, mic, mike, mission, freelance interpr... and 2086 more...
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new acquisitions
found in the wild (i.e., not on Wordie!)
samara, indehiscent, paschal, rogation, wen, rete, diriment, epicene, duramen, euhemerism, objurgate, canaille and 429 more...
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Grammar
Terms that would be good to know.
homonym, womonym, aptronym, autoantonym, bacronym, capitonym, exonym, heteronym, oronym, patronym, pseudonym, retronym and 62 more...
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Meta-words
synecdoche, metonymy, paronomasia, polyptoton, anacoluthon, anadiplosis, anaphora, anastrophe, antimetabole, antistrophe, antithesis, chiasmus and 9 more...
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OrbitalCombustion's Words
nepenthe, phrontistery, peregrination, pervicacious, sinistrality, phallogocentric, prolixity, leptokurtic, ineffable, haecceity, lucubration, vicissitudes and 1026 more...
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Rhetorical Terms
I love learning about rhetoric. I am a dork.
anaphora, anastrophe, antimetabole, chiasmus, antithesis, aposiopesis, apposition, enthymeme, syllogism, tautology, merism, logos and 41 more...
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