Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Logic Directly proving by argument.
- adj. Linguistics Of or relating to a word, the determination of whose referent is dependent on the context in which it is said or written. In the sentence I want him to come here now, the words I, here, him, and now are deictic because the determination of their referents depends on who says that sentence, and where, when, and of whom it is said.
- n. A deictic word, such as I or there.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In logic, direct: applied to reasoning which proves directly, and opposed to elenchic, which proves indirectly.
- Demonstrative.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to deixis; to a word whose meaning is dependent on context
- n. Such a word (such as I or here)
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Direct; proving directly; -- applied to reasoning, and opposed to
elenchtic or refutative. - adj. showing or pointing to directly; pertaining to deixis; -- used to designate words that specify identity, location, or time from the perspective of one of the participants in a discourse, using the surrounding context as reference.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a word specifying identity or spatial or temporal location from the perspective of a speaker or hearer in the context in which the communication occurs
- adj. relating to or characteristic of a word whose reference depends on the circumstances of its use
Etymologies
- Greek deiktikos, from deiktos, able to show directly, from deiknunai, to show; see deik- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Some lawyers are successful in the elenchical mode of argument -- to use a logical term -- that is, in demolishing the structure of their opponents, while they fail in the deictic, that is, in raising on its ruins an impregnable fabric of their own; but it was difficult to decide which process was the most thorough in the reasoning of Tazewell.”
Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell
“On the Minoan Language blog, Andras Zeke counters my entry against a prefix *i- in Minoan with a new idea that the morpheme in question was a separate deictic instead.”
“In that case, a pronoun (*hi) was merged with a separate deictic (*ke) to give hi+ke hic.”
“It is very tempting to see a somewhat similar development in the case of Etruscan pronouns: the merger with an initial *i- deictic.”
“And I also know where this *i deictic might have come from.”
“The word *i = "that" would make a perfect and natural deictic, that could later have been merged onto the demonstratives KA and TA.”
“It would be interesting to explore whether *a has seen any use as a deictic for persons.”
“The word *i = "that" would make a perfect and natural deictic, that could later have been merged onto the demonstratives KA and TA.”
“Strange, I've posted exactly about this pre-Etruscan *i- deictic and its relationship to animacy, ergativity, and PIE *i- before online somewhere Yahoogroups like Cybalist perhaps?”
“But I knew I wouldn't get it - I conlang, a lot, but I have no finished conlang to show, and judging by the HBO pitch, I don't think that showing off my flashy deictic systems would have impressed them much.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘deictic’.
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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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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7762 more...
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Lyngwistix
semantic, semiotic, linguistic, etc.
lexeme, sonorant, prosody, monophthong, portmanteau, dithyramb, inflection, deixis, mondegreen, screed, persiflage, polysemy and 27 more...
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Grounded Words
an Eckhartian exercise of grinding
grind, grist, refrain, ground, grit, mitochondrion, groats, grout, gruel, great, gruesome, gravel and 158 more...
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Phrases and words I didn't know
give up the ghost, ninja'd, coal-hole, hotting up, chancer, clave, salaryman, turf accountant, cremains, autoclave, hummingbird mind, gank and 113 more...
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Smart Words
polysemy, dichotomy, metonymy, parapraxis, synecdoche, prosopopeia, mimesis, schadenfreude, pulchritudinous, neolithic, limn, phantasmagoric and 138 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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Exquisite.
Words to my liking. (The most lovelybeautifulintricatecondecendinggratuitous.)
unequivocally, destitute, prudent, sagacious, circumspect, discreet, rash, forethought, evince, judicious, shrewd, extravagant and 227 more...
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Review
Words to study and become more familiar with.
phatic, tontine, backronym, polyptoton, fissiparous, deus ex machina, orrery, prolly, mad props, snog, oubliette, copyleft and 101 more...
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Cellar Door
It's the way the letters combine to form an beautiful whole and the way its sound tickles the ear.
capricious, sigh, jest, psyche, elf, wither, languish, wane, fade, caustic, pithy, epicene and 115 more...
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JesusIsLord's Words
debauchery, plethora, wiki, numinous, wormwood, scribe, gelded, mithridate, orthogonal, jaculiferous, jaculate, jactitation and 415 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 2766 more...
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...another list...
I've no idea where I got this page full of words, but whatever it is, I want to find it again. May have duplicate words from other lists.
bicameral, aphelion, dirigible, parhelion, flocculus, vernier, corticate, oxalis, pandanus, calabash, plumbago, jonquil and 217 more...
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it's rhetorical
words for talking about talk (or writing)
chiasmus, polyptoton, anaphora, parataxis, hyperbole, litotes, deictic, antanaclasis, paronomasia, synecdoche, metonymy, aporia and 28 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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didascalica
from Ivan Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text - a commentary on the transition from a oral tradition to a text tradition of reading in the 12th century, and varied other discourses of Illich on a...
incipit, paideia, auctoritas, Varro, ecloga, studium, schriftlichkeitsg..., remedium, eigenlicht, sendelicht, zeigelicht, beleuchtungslicht and 59 more...
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