Lapidary

This article covers the term. For the monuments in Albania see Lapidar (Monument) .

Lapidar (Latin: lapis ' stone ', hence: '[like] carved in stone') is a short narrative or argumentation style that does not require embellishments or further explanations. In English, this style is called matter of fact ( something like : 'factual').

The lapidary style is generally perceived as sober and objective in a positive sense , as a stylistic virtue: "Every font style should have a certain trace of similarity to the lapidary style, which is of course the ancestor of all of them." However, it can be used for tragic or sad topics can also be understood as an expression of cynicism .

The word is probably derived from the straight and straightforward stone inscriptions (Greek and Roman " lapidary inscriptions ") of antiquity .

The word lapidar is relatively young in German and was only used in the 19th century. In German dictionary of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1838) it is not yet listed.

See also

• Brachylogy
• Laconically
• Figurae per detractionem

literature

• Andreas Hettiger: Lapidary style. In: Historical dictionary of rhetoric . Edited by Gert Ueding . Vol. 5: L – Musi. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2001, ISBN 978-3-484-68105-7 , Sp. 28–31.

Web links

Wiktionary: lapidar  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer : About writing and style. In: Complete Works. Edited by Arthur Hübscher . Vol. 6: Parerga and Paralipomena  II. Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1962, § 272-289a, pp. 523-587, here § 283, p. 555.
2. ↑ succinctly in the Google Ngram Viewer. Retrieved September 24, 2018 .