Definisn’t

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The opposite of a definition. The most famous example is the definition 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]”

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 could be. security-based swaps.