Aporia
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An expression of deliberation with oneself regarding uncertainty or doubt as to how to proceed. rhetoric
"Aporia oft in doubt and fear will rest, And reason with itself what may be best."
- 2 An insoluble contradiction, especially in a text's meaning; a logical impasse suggested by a text or speaker.
"But Green issues are already a contested zone, already a site where politicization is being fought for. In what follows, I want to stress two other aporias in capitalist realism, which are not yet politicized to anything like the same degree. The first is mental health."
Example
More examples"Aporia oft in doubt and fear will rest, And reason with itself what may be best."
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.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.