contextomy

English

Etymology

From context +‎ -tomy.

Noun

contextomy (countable and uncountable, plural contextomies)

1. The act or practice of quoting somebody out of context, often to give a false impression of what they said.
   • 1964, Milton Mayer, What can a man do?: A selection of his most challenging writings, page 33:

     …saying that the Literary Gazette had committed the Chicago Tribune's habitual crime of contextomy against me.

   • 1967, Paul F. Boller, Quotemanship: the use and abuse of quotations for polemical and other purposes, page 286:

     The competent quoteman, no matter how eager he is to outwit his opponent, will have neither the need nor the inclination to stoop to contextomy of the flagrantly mendacious sort.

   • 2008 May 29, Amol Rajan, “Excellent! Theatres forced to withdraw misleading reviews”, in The Independent‎^[1]:

     The prosecution would have to prove that audiences were misled by the practice, known as contextomy. Those who break the laws could face fines […]

Synonyms

• quote mining

Derived terms

• contextomize

Translations

Translations

• Finnish: kontekstomia