inquisition
- noun
- /ˌɪnkwɪˈzɪʃən/
- Her relentless inquisition into his past made him uncomfortable and defensive.
It's a medieval apocalyptic belief system which has heretics, It has inquisitions, it has penalties.
- It's a medieval apocalyptic belief system which has heretics, It has inquisitions, it has penalties.
- And I think there's a difference between, you know, Inquiry and Inquisition.
- It's a, it's a, it's an act of, of, of inquisition.
- And because we often feel in our world that people are so disconnected, many people may feel that this kind of inquisition is how it should be.
Examples
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I'll try to keep the inquisition short.
Fiction book (1993) -
Two questions guided this exploratory inquisition into the effectiveness of this specifically designed curriculum.
Academic text (2007) -
If Mark would only ask him about himself, the inquisition could be called off.
Fiction book (1998) -
And, okay, fine, just stop with the inquisition.
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I did not wish to be a part of any such inquisition.
Academic text (1993) -
Delivering these gifts five years too late in the form of an inquisition was not helpful.
Blog text (8) -
This inquisition has been designed to implicate an innocent man!
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You know, it's pretty nervy of these publishers to put us through this inquisition.
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The inquisition should not be seen as a religious policy to affirm an orthodoxy.
Academic text (1994) -
How's the inquisition going?
Synonyms
A set of formal questions asked to get information during an investigation
Formal questioning of a person in an official or academic setting
Very hard questioning that tries to get information by pressure
Harsh or violent questioning by government officials that is like torture
Questioning someone for a long time to cause stress or force answers
Asking someone many questions to get information or make sure they understand
Antonyms
Compounds
A court set up by the Spanish kings to find and punish people for not following Catholic beliefs
A court set up by the Catholic Church in Italy in 1542 to punish people for new religious ideas
A Roman Catholic church group that judged people for wrong religious beliefs in Italy from 1542
How Severe
Surface Forms
Morphology
inquisition = inquisit + ion
Formally related to 'inquire'/'inquiry' so learners can infer it concerns questioning, but the stronger or institutional sense ('severe, prolonged') is not fully predictable from the base.
Etymology
Inquisition comes from old Latin parts in- 'into' and quaerere 'to seek', the same root as in the English verb inquire. It originally meant 'a searching for answers', so today an inquisition is a long or severe questioning.