Definisn’t
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Towards more picturesque speech™
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Definisn’t
/ˌdɛfɪˈnɪznt/ (n.)
The opposite of a definition. A lexical means to establishing, for all times and all avoidances, what something is not.
The most famous example is the definisn’t of “security-based swap” from the Rules and Regulations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
“'The term security-based swap ... does not include an agreement, contract, or transaction that is based on or references a qualifying foreign futures contract ... on the debt securities of any one or more of the foreign governments ... provided that such agreement, contract, or transaction satisfies the following conditions: [there follows an interminable list of conditions]”[1]
We are left with the rather unsettling conclusion that anything else in the universe is, or could be, or it is not beyond that question that it could in suitable circumstances be considered as, or deemed to be, a security-based swap. A Cornish pasty; an echidna; a map of Tasmania; a motorised rick-shaw: all are, or at any rate could be, “security-based swaps” for whatever purposes might hove into view should you be a regulator empowered by the Securities Exchange Act.
Then there is the definisn’t of “companies” in Clifford Chance’s Luxembourg GMRA netting opinion, which goes beyond the lawyers run-of-the-mill perversities — you know: pegging off the rest of the universe, known and unknown, instead of focusing on the matter at hand — and moves over to a form of cruel and unusual torture of the English language (and those poor souls consigned forever to read netting opinions), for which we refer you to our article on extraordinary rendition.