Dictionary

atextual en · ADJ

Etymology

From a- + textual.

Meanings

1. Not textual; not derived from written works.
   • What Marx attacks are the atextual theses that history is made up of free events and that history is guided by superior individuals. 1983, Edward W. Said, The World, the Text, and the Critic, page 45:
2. Of an interpretation of a statute or similar governing provision, derived from something other than the text of the provision.
   • Neither party to the present case challenges the atextual extension of the habeas statute to United States citizens held beyond the territorial jurisdictions of the United States courts... Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2007), Scalia, J., dissenting

Forms