quiddity

/ˈkwɪdɪdi/

Other forms: quiddities

When a politician avoids answering a question while pretending to answer it, she often does it using quiddity, or by bringing up irrelevant and distracting points.

Quiddity is a usefully sneaky tool if you want to evade an argument or question, and it's often used by people like lawyers in court and teenagers angling for later curfews. The noun quiddity has a philosophical meaning too, "the essential nature of something," or the unique thing that makes it what it is. The Medieval Latin root, quidditas, translates literally as "whatness."

Definitions of quiddity

1. noun

   the essence that makes something the kind of thing it is and makes it different from any other
   synonyms: haecceity

   type of:

   center, centre, core, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, kernel, marrow, meat, nitty-gritty, nub, pith, substance, sum

   the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
2. noun

   an evasion of the point of an argument by raising irrelevant distinctions or objections
   synonyms: cavil, quibble

   type of:

   equivocation, evasion

   a statement that is not literally false but that cleverly avoids an unpleasant truth