Interpellate

Quick meaning: Interpellate is a verb meaning (transitive, chiefly politics) To question (someone) formally concerning official or governmental policy or business.

Meaning

(transitive, chiefly politics) To question (someone) formally concerning official or governmental policy or business.

More Meanings

1. (philosophy) To address (a person) in a way that presupposes a particular identification of them; to give (a person) an identity (which may or may not be accurate).
2. (obsolete) To interrupt (someone) so as to inform or question (that person about something).

Example Sentences

[…] whereas the Palestinian subjects are interpellated as: the martyr... a young Palestinian... a Palestinian teenager.

[…] a Master of Ceremonies' words "Ladies and gentlemen" […] interpellates those being addressed as an audience, and one that is differentiated by gender.

[…] the question may be whether the individual should let herself be interpellated as a feminist, a Christian or a worker. Perhaps all of these possibilities seem attractive, but they point in different directions […]

After the gentleman and Senator [Mariano Jesús] Cuenco interpellated me, I knew already that my bill was hopeless. That is why I presented that bill on February 4th, but it slept the sleep of the just in the Committee on Education.

Word Forms

• interpellates
• interpellating
• interpellated

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include pose, question, interrogate, reinterrogate, examine, cross-examine.

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