Skip to main content
PlainSpell

apodictic

/æpəˈdɪktɪk/adjective

apodictic is an adjective meaning “Incontrovertible; demonstrably true or certain” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-P-O-D-I-C-T-I-C, and it appears about once in every 71 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does apodictic mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Incontrovertible; demonstrably true or certain.

  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!"

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce apodictic?

  • UK /apəʊˈdɪktɪk/
  • UK /apəʊˈdaɪktɪk/
  • US /æpəˈdɪktɪk/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Forms of apodictic

  • more apodictic comparative
  • most apodictic superlative
  • apodeictic

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is apodictic?

Apodictic appears about once in every 71 million words in written English, the 265,644th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Apodictic in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense incontrovertible:

LanguageWords
Frenchapodictique
Germanapodiktisch

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does apodictic come from?

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

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).