aporia means an expression of deliberation with oneself regarding uncertainty or doubt as to how to proceed. It carries an Arena rating of 1749, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, aporia ranks #379 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #437 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #576 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #675 of 17,105 for Most Storied Words.
aporia is pronounced /əˈpɔːɹɪə/.
Why “aporia” is a great word
A state of genuine puzzlement arising from a logical impasse or irresolvable contradiction within an argument. From the Latin aporia, from the Ancient Greek ἀπορία (aporía, 'perplexity, difficulty'), from ἄπορος (áporos, 'impassable'), from ἀ- (a-, 'without, not') + πόρος (póros, 'passage, way'), first attested in English in the 1580s. Unlike a paradox, which is a statement that invites a deeper truth, or a dilemma, which forces a choice, aporia is the experience of the blocked path itself. It is the vexed furrow in a reader’s brow upon encountering a text that unravels its own premise, the scholar frozen mid-sentence with a finger lifted from the page, the profound quiet of a mind that has reached the shore of its own reasoning. In aporia, the mind discovers its own architecture as something it cannot inhabit—walled, windowless, and yet somehow still searching for air.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin aporia, from Ancient Greek ἀπορία (aporía), from ἄπορος (áporos, “impassable”), from ἀ- (a-, “a-”) + πόρος (póros, “passage”). By surface analysis, a- + pore + -ia.
noun
- An expression of deliberation with oneself regarding uncertainty or doubt as to how to proceed.e.g.“Aporia oft in doubt and fear will rest,
And reason with itself what may be best.” — 1835, L[arret] Langley, “[Rhetorical Figures.] Aporia.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 55:
- An apparently insoluble contradiction or tension, especially in a text's meaning; a logical impasse suggested by a text or speaker; a paradox.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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