an assertion or imperative cloaked in the guise of an innocuous question, thus allowing a speaker to soften the impact of his actual statement, as in “Will you launch the product next Tuesday after I submit the approvals we discussed?”; the word is a deliberately ungainly portmanteau of both the ‘question’ and ‘statement’ components; its quirkiness makes it suitable for lighthearted use in acknowledging the underlying message communicated by the supposed question