in Rhetoric, otherwise called reticency and suppression; a figure, by which a person really speaks of a thing, at the same time that he makes a show as if he would say nothing of it. The word comes from ἀποσιωπῶ, I am silent.—It is commonly used to denote the same with ellipsis. Jul. Scaliger distinguishes them. The latter, according to him, being only the suppression of a word; as, me, me; adjum quifect; the former, the omitting to relate some part of the action; as,

Dixerat, atque illam media inter talia ferro Collapsam adspiciunt

where the poet does not mention how Dido killed herself.—This figure is of use to keep up the grandeur and sublimity of a discourse.