mycterism

noun /ˈmɪktəɹɪzəm/

1. A subtle or scornful jibe.

   rare

   But he recovers himself soon, if only by the dry fashion in which he observes that, if anybody does not know it, the Greeks call certain kinds of allegory sarcasm, asteism, antiphasis, and parœmia, to which it may be well to at mycterism, a kind of derision which is dissembled, but not altogether concealed―as very neatly by M. Fabius Quintillianus in the passage before us.

Where it comes from

From Ancient Greek μυκτηρισμός (muktērismós), from μυκτηρίζω (muktērízō, “I sneer”), from μυκτήρ (muktḗr, “nostril”).

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry mycterism (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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