Taʾkīd al-madḥ bimā yushbih al-dhamm strengthens praise through language that initially resembles fault-finding. The hearer expects an exception revealing a defect, but receives an additional excellence instead.
Its two main forms are: first, denying a defect and then introducing a praised quality as the apparent exception; second, affirming a praised quality and following it with another praise introduced by an exception-like particle.
The decisive feature is the rhetorical reinforcement of praise, not the mere grammatical presence of an exception.