Interpell

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To formally call a government minister to account by questioning them in a legislative assembly ; to break into someone's speech or a debate with an interruption
2. Formally to challenge a government official on their conduct in parliament ; to cut across another person's speech by interjecting
3. To press a minister for an explanation during a legislative session ; to halt or break into a speaker's words with a interruption

Etymology: "Interpellate" is a verb that means to question a government minister formally, usually in a legislative session, and it comes from Latin "interpellare," meaning "to interrupt" or "to break in on a speech." The Latin verb combines "inter-," meaning "between," with "pellere," meaning "to strike" or "to drive," so its literal sense is something like striking into the middle of a proceeding. Its earliest English uses in the 1600s carried the Latin sense of interrupting or interposing, and the parliamentary meaning came later, as it was applied to the procedure of calling a minister to account. The sense of interpellation as a rhetorical or political act was later given a much broader meaning. In the twentieth century, the French philosopher Louis Althusser used "interpellation" to describe how ideology hails individuals and makes them recognize themselves as subjects, as when a policeman's call of "Hey, you!" turns a passerby into a suspect. That usage is the reason many readers meet the word in academic writing, though the everyday English sense remains the parliamentary one.

Synonyms: interrupt, interpose, interject