English

Noun

contextomy ‎(plural contextomies)

1. The practice (or act) of quoting a person (or people) out of context, often with the aim of winning an argument, often intending obfuscation of the quote's actual meaning.
   • 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:

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

Derived terms

• contextomize