Apodictic

//æpəˈdɪktɪk// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Incontrovertible; demonstrably true or certain.

    "No religion has ever yet owed its prevalence to ‘apodictic certainty’."

  2. 2
    Being a style of argument in which a person presents their reasoning as categorically true, even if it is not necessarily so.

    "Don’t be so apodictic! You haven’t considered several facets of the question."

  3. 3
    Absolute and without explanation, as in a command from God like "Thou shalt not kill!"
Adjective
  1. 1
    of a proposition; necessarily true or logically certain wordnet

Example

More examples

"No religion has ever yet owed its prevalence to ‘apodictic certainty’."

Etymology

From the Latin apodīcticus (“proving clearly”, “demonstrative”), from the Ancient Greek ἀποδεικτικός (apodeiktikós, “affording proof”, “demonstrative”), from ἀποδείκνυμι (apodeíknumi, “I demonstrate”). In turn, from ἀπο- (apo-, “separate, without”), and δεικτικός (deiktikós, “capable of proof”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.