Epidei-whutsit?

If you want to read the Internet stumbling over the definition of a word, look no further.

A student used this word in an essay I'm grading tonight. He found a definition that pretty much reads like the stereo instructions you'll get in this Wikipedia article, but befuddled his ol' instructor, who needs it in layman's terms.

I can see why he's struggling, though. No one on the 'net is able to define it plainly.*

I'm telling him if he can't define the term, he'd better not use it.

But wanting closure, I wanted to find a definition that made sense to me.

I kept poking the Internet. And came up empty. So I posted the question to my Facebook friend, and one delivered, with this.

The word: Epideictic. The definition that made sense, finally: a ceremonial verbal display, often with the purpose of dispensing blame or praise. I think my student used it correctly, but he was struggling mightily to define it. And when you use a two-dollar word in a 100-level English class, you'd better be able to define it. And you can't use a definition with more two-dollar words, which is what this student was trying to do.

*Sure, the Wikipedia article and definition it offers makes more sense now, but read on to see how that came to pass.