meaning - What is it called when something is described by what it isn't?


I'm not looking for a particular part of speech.


A corollary to this idea, and in some ways the opposite, is when something is defined by/as itself. A lot of times you will find this in bad dictionaries when the definition of a word refers to a word whose definition refers to the original word. I am wondering if there is a word to describe this phenomenon.


I also recognize that using 'whose' above is grammatically incorrect, as it refers to a person. What would I replace it with?




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