The most complete reference guide to rhetorical terms in the English language, including classical Greek and Latin figures, schemes, tropes, logical fallacies, canons of rhetoric, and modern rhetorical concepts.
How to use this wiki: Entries are alphabetical. Each entry includes the term’s origin, a definition, a constructed or quoted example, a reference to a famous work where the device appears, and a link to a major online source for further reading.
A
Abominatio
(Latin: “abomination”) A rhetorical figure in which a speaker expresses extreme disgust or aversion toward a subject, person, or idea — often to signal a moral boundary.
Example: “I will not speak the name of that traitor; even to utter it is to soil one’s tongue.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Catilinam frequently employs abominatio to frame Catiline as a monster beyond civilized discourse.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Accumulatio
(Latin: “heaping up”) The gathering together of previously stated points or arguments into a compact, forceful summary — often at the conclusion of a speech or section. Related to enumeratio and congeries.
Example: “Greed, cowardice, dishonesty, betrayal of friends — these are the marks of his career.”
Famous Work: Cicero uses accumulatio extensively in Philippicae to summarize Antony’s vices in rapid succession.
Source: LitCharts – Literary Devices
Acyrologia
(Greek: ἀκυρολογία — “improper use of words”) The use of an incorrect or inexact word in place of the proper one, either through error or for humorous effect. Distinguished from malapropism by its broader application.
Example: “He was a vast improvement — I mean a fast improvement — over his predecessor.” (unintentional) OR “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds… we shall never cessate.” (comic effect)
Famous Work: Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775) is the most famous literary embodiment of this figure.
Source: Wikipedia – Acyrologia
Ad Hominem
(Latin: “to the person”) A logical fallacy in which an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or personal attributes of the person making the argument rather than addressing the argument’s substance.
Example: “You can’t trust his economic policy proposals — he’s been divorced three times.”
Famous Work: Schopenhauer catalogs this as a fallacy in The Art of Being Right (1831), calling it one of the most commonly deployed rhetorical stratagems in debate.
Source: Wikipedia – Ad Hominem
Ad Ignorantiam (Argument from Ignorance)
(Latin: “appeal to ignorance”) A logical fallacy asserting that a claim is true because it has not been proven false, or false because it has not been proven true.
Example: “No one has ever disproven the existence of ghosts, so they must exist.”
Famous Work: John Locke identified this fallacy in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), classifying it as one of four types of fallacious argumentation.
Source: Wikipedia – Argument from Ignorance
Ad Misericordiam (Appeal to Pity)
(Latin: “appeal to pity”) A fallacy or rhetorical strategy in which an appeal to sympathy or emotion is used as a substitute for a logical argument.
Example: “You should give me an A on this exam — my grandmother just passed away and I’ve been too distraught to study.”
Famous Work: Plato critiques this move in Apology, where Socrates explicitly refuses to bring his weeping family before the jury — rejecting ad misericordiam as beneath the dignity of truth-seeking.
Source: Wikipedia – Appeal to Pity
Ad Populum (Appeal to the People)
(Latin: “appeal to the people”) A fallacy in which the popularity or widespread acceptance of a claim is offered as evidence of its truth. Also called bandwagon fallacy.
Example: “Millions of people believe the earth is only 6,000 years old — who are scientists to say otherwise?”
Famous Work: Referenced extensively in Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895), which analyzes how mass psychology exploits this very appeal.
Source: Wikipedia – Argumentum ad Populum
Adnominatio
(Latin: from nomen, “name”) A play on a word by altering a letter or syllable, or by repeating the word in a different form or case. A broad category encompassing paronomasia, polyptoton, and annominatio.
Example: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” — Benjamin Franklin
Famous Work: Shakespeare uses adnominatio throughout Richard III, particularly with the word “grace” applied ironically to Richard.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Adianoeta
(Greek: ἀδιανόητος — “not clearly thought out”) An expression that carries an obvious surface meaning along with a second, hidden or ironic meaning understood only by the more perceptive audience.
Example: A politician says: “I would never dream of undermining my opponent.” (The hidden meaning: he has done exactly that.)
Famous Work: Swift deploys adianoeta throughout A Modest Proposal (1729), where the surface text advocates eating children while the hidden argument indicts British colonial policy.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Aetiology (Aetiologia)
(Greek: αἰτιολογία — “assigning a cause”) A rhetorical figure in which the speaker provides a reason or cause for an assertion — pausing to offer justification for a claim.
Example: “I refuse to vote for this bill, for it would strip rights from the very citizens we swore to protect.“
Famous Work: Aristotle discusses causal reasoning at length in Rhetoric as central to deliberative and forensic argument.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Affectio
(Latin: “feeling, disposition”) A figure in which the speaker describes an emotion or mental state — particularly one’s own — in order to generate sympathy or credibility with the audience.
Example: “I stand before you not as a confident man, but as a father shaking with fear for his country’s children.”
Famous Work: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) uses affectio to position him as grieving alongside a war-torn nation.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Allegory
(Greek: ἀλληγορία — “other speaking”) A sustained narrative or description in which the surface story encodes a deeper, usually moral, political, or philosophical meaning. Every character and event functions on at least two levels simultaneously.
Example: Orwell’s Animal Farm depicts a farm takeover by animals that clearly represents the Russian Revolution and Stalinist totalitarianism.
Famous Work: Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590) is one of the most elaborate allegories in English literature, encoding Protestant theology and Elizabethan politics into an epic romance.
Source: LitCharts – Allegory
Alliteration
(Latin: ad + littera, “to the letter”) The repetition of the same initial consonant sound in closely connected words, used to create rhythm, emphasis, or memorability.
Example: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
Famous Work: Beowulf (c. 700–1000 CE), the Old English epic, is composed almost entirely in alliterative verse: “Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum…”
Source: LitCharts – Alliteration
Allusion
(Latin: alludere, “to play with”) An indirect or passing reference to a person, place, event, literary work, or cultural artifact, relying on the audience’s recognition to complete the meaning.
Example: “Don’t open that box — you’ll unleash a real Pandora’s situation.”
Famous Work: T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) is built almost entirely of literary, mythological, and cultural allusions, from Dante to Arthurian legend.
Source: LitCharts – Allusion
Anadiplosis
(Greek: ἀναδίπλωσις — “doubling back”) The repetition of the last word (or phrase) of one clause or sentence at the beginning of the next, creating a chain-like progression of ideas.
Example: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” — Yoda, Star Wars
Famous Work: The Bible (King James Version), particularly in Romans 5:3–5: “…tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.”
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Anadiplosis
Anachronism
(Greek: ἀναχρονισμός — “against time”) The placement of a person, object, custom, or idea in a time period to which it does not belong — intentionally (for effect) or unintentionally (as error).
Example: Shakespeare’s clock striking in Julius Caesar — mechanical clocks did not exist in ancient Rome.
Famous Work: Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) uses deliberate anachronism as its central comic and satirical device.
Source: Wikipedia – Anachronism
Anagnorisis
(Greek: ἀναγνώρισις — “recognition”) A moment of critical discovery or recognition — particularly in drama — when a character (or the audience) suddenly understands the true nature of a situation or person. Aristotle identified it as a key element of tragedy.
Example: In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’s discovery that he has killed his father and married his mother is the archetypal anagnorisis.
Famous Work: Aristotle defines and analyzes anagnorisis in Poetics (c. 335 BCE), arguing it is most powerful when combined with peripeteia (reversal of fortune).
Source: Wikipedia – Anagnorisis
Anaphora
(Greek: ἀναφορά — “carrying back”) The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines — one of the most powerful rhetorical devices for building rhythm, emphasis, and emotional intensity.
Example: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields…” — Winston Churchill
Famous Work: Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech (1963) is the most celebrated modern use of anaphora in American oratory.
Source: LitCharts – Anaphora
Anastrophe
(Greek: ἀναστροφή — “turning back”) The inversion of normal word order for rhetorical effect — particularly common in poetry and formal oratory.
Example: “Speak, friend, and enter.” / “Strong is the Force.” — Yoda, Star Wars
Famous Work: John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) employs anastrophe throughout to achieve a Latinate grandeur: “Him the Almighty Power / Hurled headlong flaming…”
Source: LitCharts – Anastrophe
Antanaclasis
(Greek: ἀντανάκλασις — “reflection”) The repetition of a word or phrase whose meaning changes or shifts with each use — a form of wordplay that exploits semantic ambiguity.
Example: “Your argument is sound — all sound and no substance.”
Famous Work: Benjamin Franklin: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” (hang = unite / hang = be executed)
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Antanaclasis
Antimetabole
(Greek: ἀντιμεταβολή — “turning about in the opposite direction”) The repetition of words in reverse grammatical order, creating a mirror-like structure that emphasizes contrast or paradox. A specific form of chiasmus.
Example: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” — JFK
Famous Work: JFK’s Inaugural Address (1961) is the most quoted modern example; the device also appears throughout Hamlet: “I eat the air, promise-crammed.”
Source: LitCharts – Antimetabole
Antiphasis
(Greek: ἀντίφασις — “contradiction”) The use of a word in a sense opposite to its normal meaning — a form of irony in which the speaker says the opposite of what is meant, often sarcastically.
Example: Calling a brutish man “a real gentle giant” while rolling one’s eyes.
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar — Antony’s repeated phrase “Brutus is an honorable man” becomes increasingly antiphastic as the speech proceeds.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Antithesis
(Greek: ἀντίθεσις — “opposition”) The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced parallel structures — creating emphasis through opposition.
Example: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — Dickens
Famous Work: Charles Dickens opens A Tale of Two Cities (1859) with one of the most celebrated extended antitheses in literature.
Source: LitCharts – Antithesis
Antonomasia
(Greek: ἀντονομασία — “naming instead”) The substitution of a title, epithet, or descriptive phrase for a proper name — or, conversely, the use of a proper name to stand for a general type.
Example: Using “The Bard” for Shakespeare; using “a Napoleon” to mean a military genius.
Famous Work: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are filled with antonomasia — Odysseus is repeatedly called “the man of twists and turns,” Achilles “the swift-footed.”
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Antonomasia
Aphorism
(Greek: ἀφορισμός — “definition, distinction”) A concise, memorable statement of a general truth or principle — distinguished by its compression and its air of authority or wisdom.
Example: “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — Lord Acton
Famous Work: Francis Bacon’s Essays (1597–1625) are among the most aphorism-dense texts in English literature; Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732–1758) popularized the form in America.
Source: Wikipedia – Aphorism
Apophasis (Praeteritio / Paralipsis)
(Greek: ἀπόφασις — “denial”) Mentioning something by claiming to pass over or ignore it — a form of ironic emphasis that draws attention to the very thing being “omitted.”
Example: “I won’t even mention the fact that my opponent was convicted of fraud. We’ll leave that aside entirely.”
Famous Work: Cicero is a master of apophasis in In Verrem, frequently saying he will not discuss something and thereby making it unforgettable.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Paralipsis
Aporia
(Greek: ἀπορία — “difficulty, perplexity”) A rhetorical expression of doubt — either genuine or feigned — about where to begin, what to say, or which of several arguments to pursue. Also used in philosophy to mean a genuine logical impasse.
Example: “Where do I even begin? There are so many failures I could cite — so many betrayals — I confess I am overwhelmed by the choice.”
Famous Work: Derrida built an entire philosophical system around aporia as genuine conceptual undecidability; Cicero uses it rhetorically throughout De Oratore.
Source: Wikipedia – Aporia
Aposiopesis
(Greek: ἀποσιώπησις — “becoming silent”) The abrupt breaking off of a sentence before it is complete — leaving it to the listener’s imagination to fill in what is too powerful, too terrible, or too emotional to state outright.
Example: “If you ever dare to betray this family again, so help me, I will —” [silence]
Famous Work: Virgil’s Aeneid Book I: Jupiter threatens, but stops himself — “quos ego—!” (“Whom I—!”) — one of the most famous aposiopeses in classical literature.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Aposiopesis
Apostrophe
(Greek: ἀποστροφή — “turning away”) The direct address of an absent, dead, or nonhuman entity as if it were present and capable of understanding — a dramatic turning away from the primary audience.
Example: “O Death, where is thy sting?” — 1 Corinthians 15:55
Famous Work: Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819) and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” are built on apostrophe; Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” opens with it.
Source: LitCharts – Apostrophe
Appeal to Authority (Argumentum ad Verecundiam)
(Latin: “argument from reverence/modesty”) A logical fallacy (or legitimate rhetorical strategy) in which the testimony or opinion of an authority figure is invoked to support a claim — fallacious when the authority is outside their domain of expertise.
Example: “As a famous actor, I can tell you that vaccines cause autism.” (fallacious) vs. “As the leading cardiologist in the field, Dr. Nguyen recommends…” (potentially legitimate)
Famous Work: John Locke identified argumentum ad verecundiam in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689).
Source: Wikipedia – Argument from Authority
Archaism
(Greek: ἀρχαϊσμός — “old-fashioned expression”) The deliberate use of words, phrases, or grammatical constructions that are old-fashioned or obsolete — often to create a formal, solemn, or historical tone.
Example: “Whither goest thou?” / “Hark! What light through yonder window breaks?”
Famous Work: The King James Bible (1611) is the greatest English reservoir of archaisms; Tolkien deliberately deploys them throughout The Lord of the Rings to evoke mythic antiquity.
Source: Wikipedia – Archaism
Argumentation
(Latin: argumentatio, “proof, reasoning”) The broader rhetorical and logical process of offering reasons, evidence, and warrants in support of a claim — one of the foundational activities of rhetoric, encompassing both formal logic and persuasive strategy.
Example: A legal brief presenting evidence, precedent, and logical inferences to support a client’s case.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric (c. 350 BCE) and Prior Analytics together constitute the Western world’s foundational treatment of argumentation.
Source: Wikipedia – Argumentation Theory
Aristotelian Appeals (Ethos, Pathos, Logos)
(Greek: ἦθος / πάθος / λόγος) The three primary modes of persuasion identified by Aristotle: ethos (credibility/character of the speaker), pathos (emotional appeal to the audience), and logos (logical argument and evidence). Together they form the foundation of classical rhetorical theory.
Example: A doctor (ethos) presents statistical evidence (logos) about a disease’s death toll while showing images of suffering patients (pathos).
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric (c. 350 BCE), Book I, Chapter 2 is the source text. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (1961) is a masterclass in all three simultaneously.
Source: Wikipedia – Modes of Persuasion
Assonance
(Latin: assonare, “to sound in response”) The repetition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words — creating internal rhyme or musical resonance without full end-rhyme.
Example: “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”
Famous Work: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1845) uses assonance pervasively: “And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain…”
Source: LitCharts – Assonance
Asyndeton
(Greek: ἀσύνδετον — “unconnected”) The omission of conjunctions between clauses or items in a list — creating a rapid, compressed, forceful effect.
Example: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” — Julius Caesar (Veni, vidi, vici)
Famous Work: Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici is the most famous asyndeton in all of rhetoric; Churchill uses it extensively in wartime speeches.
Source: LitCharts – Asyndeton
Auxesis
(Greek: αὔξησις — “growth, increase”) The arrangement of words, clauses, or ideas in order of increasing importance or intensity — also called climax in some traditions. Also used to mean a word or phrase that overstates or magnifies.
Example: “This is not just an error — it is a failure — it is a catastrophe — it is the end of everything we built.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Catilinam employs auxesis to build toward devastating conclusions about Catiline’s treachery.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Auxesis
B
Bathos
(Greek: βάθος — “depth”) An abrupt, jarring descent from the elevated to the trivial or absurd — often unintentionally comic, though sometimes used deliberately for satiric effect. The opposite of hypsos (the sublime).
Example: “She had survived wars, famines, and the fall of empires — and then she stubbed her toe and cried for an hour.”
Famous Work: Alexander Pope coined the modern rhetorical sense in Peri Bathous, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry (1727), a mock-treatise parodying bad poets.
Source: Wikipedia – Bathos
Begging the Question (Petitio Principii)
(Latin: “assuming the beginning”) A logical fallacy in which the conclusion of an argument is assumed within the premise — circular reasoning that takes for granted what needs to be proven.
Example: “The Bible is true because it says so in the Bible.”
Famous Work: Aristotle identifies petitio principii in Prior Analytics (c. 350 BCE) as one of the fundamental fallacies of dialectic.
Source: Wikipedia – Begging the Question
Brachylogy
(Greek: βραχυλογία — “brief speech”) An extremely concise form of expression that omits words that could be considered unnecessary — a compressed style where much is implied.
Example: “If possible.” / “Guilty as charged.” / “Never.”
Famous Work: Spartan speech was the ancient exemplar — the word “laconic” (from Laconia/Sparta) derives from this tradition; Hemingway’s prose style is the modern literary heir.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Brachylogia
(Greek: variant of brachylogy) The absence of conjunctions between single words in a list — the word-level version of asyndeton.
Example: “Fast, strong, silent, deadly.”
Famous Work: Julius Caesar’s military dispatches; Tacitus’s Annals for their compressed, telegraphic Latin prose.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Burlesque
(French/Italian: burlesco, from burla, “mockery”) A literary or rhetorical mode that ridicules a serious subject by treating it with comic irreverence — or elevates a trivial subject with mock-heroic grandeur. Encompasses parody and travesty.
Example: Treating a minor office squabble with the language and gravity of Homeric epic.
Famous Work: Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1712) is the supreme English burlesque — treating the theft of a lock of hair as a full-scale epic conflict.
Source: Wikipedia – Burlesque
C
Cacophony
(Greek: κακοφωνία — “bad sound”) The deliberate use of harsh, discordant sounds in language — the opposite of euphony — often to create a sense of disorder, violence, or ugliness.
Example: “The clash and clang of the crashing, crunching wreckage filled the valley.”
Famous Work: Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1917) uses cacophony to capture the horror of gas warfare: “the guttering, choking, drowning.”
Source: LitCharts – Cacophony
Canons of Rhetoric
(Latin: canones rhetorici, from Greek: κανών — “rule, standard”) The five classical divisions of the rhetorical process, formulated by Cicero and codified in the Roman tradition: Inventio (invention/finding arguments), Dispositio (arrangement), Elocutio (style), Memoria (memory), and Pronuntiatio/Actio (delivery).
Example: A speaker preparing a commencement address would: identify key arguments (inventio), arrange them in a three-part structure (dispositio), choose elevated diction (elocutio), memorize key passages (memoria), and practice vocal projection (pronuntiatio).
Famous Work: Cicero’s De Inventione (c. 84 BCE) and the Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) are the foundational texts; Quintilian systematizes them in Institutio Oratoria (c. 95 CE).
Source: Wikipedia – Canons of Rhetoric
Catachresis
(Greek: κατάχρησις — “misuse”) The use of a word in a context that differs from its original or established meaning — either an intentional, strained metaphor or the natural extension of a word beyond its literal domain.
Example: “The legs of a table” / “I will speak daggers to her.” (Hamlet) / “The arm of the chair.”
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “I will speak daggers to her, but use none” — a famous intentional catachresis.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Catachresis
Cataphora
(Greek: κατά + φέρειν — “carrying downward”) A form of reference in which a pronoun or substitute term appears before the word it refers to — the opposite of anaphora in grammar (not the same as rhetorical anaphora).
Example: “When he finally arrived, John collapsed into his chair.” (he refers forward to John)
Famous Work: Biblical rhetoric frequently employs cataphora for dramatic effect; Dickens uses it to create suspense at chapter openings.
Source: Wikipedia – Cataphora
Catharsis
(Greek: κάθαρσις — “purification, cleansing”) The emotional purging or release experienced by an audience through engagement with a powerful dramatic or rhetorical work — Aristotle’s term for the psychological effect of tragedy.
Example: A viewer who weeps through a tragedy about loss and then feels emotionally lightened by the film’s end has experienced catharsis.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Poetics (c. 335 BCE) defines catharsis as the proper end of tragedy — one of the most debated concepts in all of literary and rhetorical theory.
Source: Wikipedia – Catharsis
Chiasmus
(Greek: χιασμός — “diagonal arrangement,” from the letter chi, X) A rhetorical figure in which words, grammatical structures, or concepts are repeated in reverse order — creating an X-shaped pattern of mirroring.
Example: “Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.”
Famous Work: John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (1961): “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” (See also: antimetabole, a specific subtype.)
Source: LitCharts – Chiasmus
Circumlocution (Periphrasis)
(Latin: circumlocutio — “speaking around”) The use of many words where fewer would do — a roundabout expression that avoids naming something directly, either for politeness, emphasis, or evasion.
Example: “The person who gave birth to me and raised me in my formative years” instead of “my mother.”
Famous Work: Dickens uses circumlocution satirically in Little Dorrit (1855–57), where the “Circumlocution Office” is the embodiment of bureaucratic evasion.
Source: Wikipedia – Circumlocution
Climax (Gradatio)
(Greek: κλῖμαξ — “ladder”) The arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing importance, force, or intensity — building toward a peak. Also the narrative or dramatic moment of highest tension.
Example: “We will negotiate, we will protest, we will march, we will not rest until justice is done.”
Famous Work: Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches build relentlessly through climax; the rhetorical climax of King Lear comes with Lear’s storm speech on the heath.
Source: LitCharts – Climax
Colon (Rhetorical)
(Greek: κῶλον — “limb, member”) In classical rhetoric, a colon is a clause or rhythmic unit longer than a comma but shorter than a period — a major subdivision of a sentence used to create balanced or antithetical structure. (Not to be confused with the punctuation mark, which derives from this usage.)
Example: “He came in haste; he left in silence.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s periodic sentences in Pro Milone are structured around carefully balanced cola and commata.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Commoratio
(Latin: “lingering, dwelling”) The rhetorical strategy of dwelling on or returning repeatedly to the strongest point in an argument — hammering home a key idea by restating it in different words.
Example: “And this is the core of it — they betrayed the public trust. That is what matters. Betrayal. Public trust. I will not let you forget it.”
Famous Work: Cicero uses commoratio extensively in his forensic orations, particularly Pro Roscio Amerino, returning obsessively to the theme of family murder.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Commoratio
Conceit
(from Latin: conceptus, “concept”) An elaborate, intellectually striking metaphor or comparison — particularly a sustained comparison between two very unlike things. The Petrarchan conceit involves conventional love comparisons; the metaphysical conceit (associated with Donne and the 17th century) is more complex and surprising.
Example: John Donne’s comparison of two lovers’ souls to the legs of a compass (“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” 1611) is the classic metaphysical conceit.
Famous Work: John Donne’s Songs and Sonnets and George Herbert’s The Temple are the foundational texts of the metaphysical conceit.
Source: LitCharts – Conceit
Conduplicatio
(Latin: “doubling together”) The repetition of a word or words in the same or adjacent clauses for emphasis — similar to epizeuxis but with more structural variety.
Example: “Justice — justice shall you pursue.” (Deuteronomy 16:20, King James Version variant)
Famous Work: Biblical rhetoric is rich with conduplicatio; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863) uses it in “…that government of the people, by the people, for the people…”
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Conduplicatio
Connotation
(Latin: connotare, “to mark together”) The emotional, cultural, or associative meanings that a word carries beyond its literal definition (denotation) — the resonances and implications that shape how language is received.
Example: “Home” and “house” have the same denotation but very different connotations — home implies warmth, belonging, and memory.
Famous Work: Orwell’s 1984 (1949) and “Politics and the English Language” (1946) analyze how connotation is weaponized in political rhetoric.
Source: Wikipedia – Connotation
Correctio (Epanorthosis)
(Latin: “correction”) A figure in which the speaker recalls a word or phrase just used and replaces it with one considered more exact, forceful, or appropriate — sometimes for dramatic self-correction, sometimes as an intensification.
Example: “He was unkind — no, he was cruel. Brutal, in fact.”
Famous Work: Shakespeare uses correctio throughout Hamlet to capture the prince’s restless, self-revising mind: “To be, or not to be — that is the question.”
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Epanorthosis
Counter-argument
(Latin/Modern: contra + argumentum) The practice of anticipating and addressing opposing arguments within one’s own discourse — strengthening a position by acknowledging and refuting the strongest objections. Related to procatalepsis and prolepsis (rhetorical).
Example: “Some will argue that cutting taxes will explode the deficit. I will show why that objection, while understandable, fundamentally misreads the data.”
Famous Work: Mill’s On Liberty (1859) exemplifies the principle of steelmanning — addressing the strongest form of opposing arguments before refuting them.
Source: Wikipedia – Counterargument
Copia (Copiousness)
(Latin: “abundance, plenty”) The rhetorical ideal and practice of abundance in language — the ability to express the same idea in many different ways, expanding or contracting as the occasion demands. Erasmus’s De Copia (1512) was the definitive Renaissance treatise on this practice.
Example: Erasmus demonstrated copia by showing 150+ ways to write “Your letter has delighted me very much.”
Famous Work: Erasmus’s De Copia Verborum et Rerum (1512) is the foundational text; it was the most widely used rhetoric textbook in Renaissance Europe.
Source: Wikipedia – De Copia
Credibility (Ethos)
(Greek: ἦθος — “character, custom”) See Ethos. The dimension of rhetorical persuasion that derives from the perceived character, expertise, and trustworthiness of the speaker. One of Aristotle’s three primary modes of persuasion.
Source: Wikipedia – Ethos
Critique (Rhetorical)
(Greek: κριτική — “the art of judging”) The analytical process of evaluating a rhetorical text or performance — examining its strategies, effectiveness, ethical dimensions, and cultural context. A foundational activity in rhetorical studies.
Example: A student analyzing how a presidential campaign ad uses fear appeals and selective statistics to persuade working-class voters.
Famous Work: Wayne Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) and Roland Barthes’s Mythologies (1957) are landmark examples of sustained rhetorical critique.
Source: Wikipedia – Rhetorical Criticism
— End of A–C —
D
Decorum
(Latin: “that which is fitting, seemly”) The rhetorical and stylistic principle that a speaker’s language, tone, and manner must be appropriate to the subject, occasion, audience, and genre. Decorum is the master principle of classical style — the touchstone by which all other rhetorical choices are judged.
Example: A eulogy delivered in slang and with off-color jokes would violate decorum; a casual birthday toast delivered in Ciceronian periodic sentences would violate it equally.
Famous Work: Cicero’s Orator (46 BCE) is the fullest treatment; Horace’s Ars Poetica (c. 19 BCE) codifies decorum for poetic genres. The concept shapes virtually every major rhetorical and poetic treatise through the 18th century.
Source: Wikipedia – Decorum
Deduction (Syllogism)
(Latin: deductio — “leading down”) A form of reasoning in which a conclusion necessarily follows from two premises — moving from general principles to specific conclusions. The formal logical counterpart to the rhetorical enthymeme.
Example: “All humans are mortal. Socrates is a human. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.”
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (c. 350 BCE) is the founding text of deductive logic; his Rhetoric shows how deduction is adapted into the enthymeme for persuasive use.
Source: Wikipedia – Deductive Reasoning
Deliberative Rhetoric (Symbouleutikon)
(Greek: συμβουλευτικόν — “advisory”) One of Aristotle’s three genres of rhetoric, concerned with future action — advising an audience to adopt or reject a course of action. The rhetoric of legislatures, policy debates, and political speech. Its temporal orientation is the future; its central values are advantage and harm.
Example: A senator’s floor speech urging passage of a climate bill; a financial advisor recommending a portfolio rebalancing.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric Book I defines the three genres; Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech (1858) is a landmark of deliberative rhetoric in American history.
Source: Wikipedia – Deliberative Rhetoric
Denotation
(Latin: denotare — “to mark out”) The literal, dictionary definition of a word — its direct, explicit meaning, stripped of emotional or cultural associations. Contrasted with connotation.
Example: The denotation of “snake” is a legless reptile; its connotations include treachery, danger, and cunning.
Famous Work: Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics (1916) and Roland Barthes’s Mythologies (1957) theorize the relationship between denotation and connotation as foundational to semiotics and rhetorical analysis.
Source: Wikipedia – Denotation
Diacope
(Greek: διακοπή — “cutting apart”) The repetition of a word or phrase with one or more words intervening — a structure that emphasizes through interruption and return.
Example: “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s King Lear: “Never, never, never, never, never” — Lear’s five-fold repetition over Cordelia’s body. Also MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech (1963).
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Diacope
Dialectic
(Greek: διαλεκτική — “the art of conversation/debate”) The method of examining opposing arguments through reasoned discourse in order to arrive at truth — distinguished from rhetoric in that dialectic seeks truth through logical disputation, while rhetoric seeks persuasion. Plato treats dialectic as philosophy’s highest method; Aristotle calls rhetoric “the counterpart of dialectic.”
Example: The Socratic method — posing questions that expose contradictions in an interlocutor’s beliefs — is dialectic in practice.
Famous Work: Plato’s dialogues (Meno, Republic, Phaedrus) enact dialectic; Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) transforms it into a historical philosophy of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
Source: Wikipedia – Dialectic
Diatribe
(Greek: διατριβή — “a wearing away; discourse”) Originally, a form of philosophical lecture or moralizing discourse; in modern usage, a bitter, forceful verbal attack. In classical rhetoric, the diatribe was a popular form of moral argumentation using direct address, rhetorical questions, and vivid illustration.
Example: Classical: Paul’s letter to the Romans uses the diatribe style extensively. Modern: a scathing editorial denouncing political corruption.
Famous Work: Paul’s Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament is the most studied example of classical diatribe in biblical scholarship (Stanley Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 1981).
Source: Wikipedia – Diatribe
Digression (Parekbasis / Excursus)
(Greek: παρέκβασις — “a stepping aside”) A deliberate departure from the main subject of a discourse — sometimes to introduce relevant context, sometimes to relieve tension or display learning, sometimes as a strategic delay before a difficult point.
Example: A lawyer who, before delivering bad news, spends several minutes establishing the context of a complex case history is using controlled digression.
Famous Work: Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1759–1767) elevates digression to a structural principle — the narrator famously cannot advance the story without constant, elaborate detours.
Source: Wikipedia – Digression
Dispositio (Arrangement)
(Latin: “arrangement, disposition”) The second of the five classical canons of rhetoric — the art of organizing and arranging the parts of a speech or written argument for maximum effect. Classical arrangement typically followed: exordium (introduction), narratio (statement of facts), partitio (division), confirmatio (proof), refutatio (refutation), and peroratio (conclusion).
Example: A defense attorney who opens with a sympathetic narrative, presents exculpatory evidence, systematically dismantles prosecution claims, and closes with an emotional appeal to justice is deploying classical dispositio.
Famous Work: Cicero’s De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) are the canonical treatments; contemporary composition pedagogy still teaches variants of this structure.
Source: Wikipedia – Dispositio
Dissoi Logoi
(Greek: δισσοὶ λόγοι — “opposing arguments”) The practice or principle that every question has two sides that can be argued with equal force — associated with the Sophists, particularly Protagoras. A foundational concept in rhetorical theory that underlies in utramque partem (arguing both sides) and modern debate practice.
Example: Protagoras’s claim: “On every issue there are two arguments opposed to each other.”
Famous Work: The anonymous Dissoi Logoi (c. 400 BCE) is an extant sophistic text; Cicero’s De Oratore advocates training speakers by arguing both sides of every question.
Source: Wikipedia – Dissoi Logoi
Distinctio
(Latin: “distinction, separation”) A figure in which the speaker clarifies or distinguishes between different meanings or uses of a word — preempting ambiguity by specifying exactly which sense is intended.
Example: “When I say ‘free,’ I do not mean free of cost — I mean free of constraint, free of fear, free of oppression.”
Famous Work: Lincoln uses distinctio in his legal and political speeches to clarify contested terms like “liberty” and “union”; Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is built on systematic distinctio of key philosophical terms.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Distinctio
Dramatic Irony
(Greek/Modern: from εἰρωνεία + drama) A situation in which the audience possesses knowledge that one or more characters in the narrative lack — creating tension, pathos, or dark comedy from the gap between what is known and what is understood within the story.
Example: In Romeo and Juliet, the audience knows Juliet is only sleeping when Romeo believes her dead — and watches helplessly as he drinks the poison.
Famous Work: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is the defining example — the audience knows from the outset that Oedipus killed his father; the horror lies in watching him unknowingly pursue that truth.
Source: LitCharts – Dramatic Irony
Dubitatio
(Latin: “doubt, hesitation”) A rhetorical figure in which the speaker expresses uncertainty or perplexity about what to say or how to proceed — either genuinely or as a strategic performance of modesty that builds credibility.
Example: “I hardly know where to begin. The evidence is so overwhelming, so damning, that I fear I cannot do it justice.”
Famous Work: Cicero employs dubitatio at the openings of several Philippicae to appear overwhelmed by the gravity of his subject — a calculated performance of sincerity.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Dubitatio
E
Ecphonesis (Exclamation)
(Greek: ἐκφώνησις — “a crying out”) An exclamatory figure expressing strong emotion — grief, joy, indignation, wonder — often with an interjection. A burst of feeling that interrupts or punctuates a discourse.
Example: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” — Romans 11:33
Famous Work: Shakespearean tragedy abounds in ecphonesis: “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” (Hamlet); “O, I have ta’en / Too little care of this!” (King Lear)
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Ecphonesis
Ekphrasis
(Greek: ἔκφρασις — “a speaking out, description”) A vivid, detailed description of a visual work of art (painting, sculpture, shield, tapestry) that makes it present to the mind’s eye — or, more broadly, any intensely descriptive rhetorical passage that brings a scene or object to life.
Example: Homer’s description of Achilles’ shield in Iliad Book XVIII — a miniature cosmos wrought in bronze, described in 130 lines.
Famous Work: Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819) is the most celebrated ekphrastic poem in English; W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1938) offers a modern meditation on ekphrasis.
Source: Wikipedia – Ekphrasis
Ellipsis
(Greek: ἔλλειψις — “a falling short, omission”) The omission of one or more words that are implied by context and can be understood without being stated — creating compression, speed, or emphasis.
Example: “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” (the verb “is” is omitted from the second clause)
Famous Work: Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man (1733–34) is dense with ellipsis; Hemingway’s prose style famously exploits ellipsis to create the “iceberg theory” of omission.
Source: LitCharts – Ellipsis
Elocutio (Style)
(Latin: “speaking out, expression”) The third of the five classical canons of rhetoric — the art of selecting and arranging language to express ideas with clarity, appropriateness, and ornamentation. Elocutio encompasses diction, figures of speech, rhythm, and tone.
Example: Choosing between “he passed away” (euphemistic, gentle elocutio) and “he died” (plain, direct elocutio) is a decision of elocutio.
Famous Work: Cicero’s Orator (46 BCE) is the supreme treatment of elocutio; the Rhetorica ad Herennium provides the most systematic catalog of figures under this canon.
Source: Wikipedia – Elocutio
Emotion (Pathos)
(Greek: πάθος — “suffering, experience, emotion”) See Pathos. The dimension of rhetorical persuasion that works through the emotions of the audience — one of Aristotle’s three primary modes of persuasion.
Source: Wikipedia – Pathos
Enallage
(Greek: ἐναλλαγή — “exchange”) The substitution of one grammatical form for another — using a different tense, number, person, or mood than standard grammar would require — for rhetorical effect.
Example: “You plays a dangerous game.” (using second-person plural verb for singular, for archaic or comedic effect) / “We are not amused.” (royal “we” for “I”)
Famous Work: Shakespeare uses enallage extensively for characterization; the “royal we” in Queen Victoria’s reported speech is a famous historical example.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Enallage
Encomium
(Greek: ἐγκώμιον — “praise song”) A formal speech or piece of writing in praise of a person, place, institution, or ideal — one of the progymnasmata (preliminary rhetorical exercises) and a major genre of epideictic rhetoric.
Example: A valedictory address praising a graduating class; a eulogy celebrating a life; a toast honoring a mentor.
Famous Work: Erasmus’s Encomium Moriae (In Praise of Folly, 1511) is the most famous Renaissance encomium — a mock-praise that satirizes human folly. Isocrates’ Evagoras (c. 365 BCE) is the classical model.
Source: Wikipedia – Encomium
Enthymeme
(Greek: ἐνθύμημα — “in the mind”) The rhetorical syllogism — a deductive argument in which one premise is omitted because it is assumed to be shared knowledge between speaker and audience. Aristotle called it the “body of persuasion” — the primary instrument of rhetorical proof.
Example: “He’s a politician, so he must be dishonest.” (omitted premise: “All politicians are dishonest” — a shared cultural assumption, however flawed)
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric (c. 350 BCE) Book I Chapter 2 defines the enthymeme; virtually every effective political slogan operates as an enthymeme.
Source: Wikipedia – Enthymeme
Enumeratio
(Latin: “counting out”) The detailed listing or itemizing of parts, causes, effects, or circumstances — a rhetorical amplification strategy that achieves force through accumulation and specificity.
Example: “He had betrayed his country, abandoned his family, defrauded his clients, lied to his colleagues, stolen from his partners, and bribed his judges — and still called himself an honest man.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s Second Philippic against Mark Antony is a sustained exercise in enumeratio — systematically cataloging every vice and crime.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Enumeratio
Epanalepsis
(Greek: ἐπανάληψις — “resumption, repetition”) The repetition of the opening word or phrase of a clause or sentence at its close — creating a circular, emphatic structure.
Example: “The king is dead. Long live the king.” / “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” — Philippians 4:4
Famous Work: The Bible (King James Version) is dense with epanalepsis; Shakespeare uses it for incantatory effect in the Witches’ speeches in Macbeth.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Epanalepsis
Epanodos
(Greek: ἐπάνοδος — “a return”) The repetition of words from an earlier part of a sentence in reverse order, or the return to the main subject after a digression. A structural figure that creates symmetry and resolution.
Example: “We live for books. Umberto Eco” — or more elaborately: “He spoke with passion, with urgency, with conviction — with conviction, urgency, and passion.”
Famous Work: Cicero uses epanodos to create elegant structural symmetry in his perorations; it appears in Virgil’s Eclogues for musical effect.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Epanodos
Epideictic Rhetoric (Epideiktikon)
(Greek: ἐπιδεικτικόν — “display, demonstration”) One of Aristotle’s three genres of rhetoric, concerned with praise and blame — the rhetoric of ceremony, commemoration, and display. Its temporal orientation is the present; its central values are honor and disgrace. Encompasses eulogies, toasts, inaugural addresses, award speeches, and ceremonial oratory.
Example: A Presidential inaugural address, a commencement speech, a eulogy, an awards ceremony — all are epideictic occasions.
Famous Work: Pericles’ Funeral Oration (431 BCE, reported by Thucydides) is the classical model; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863) is its American heir.
Source: Wikipedia – Epideictic Rhetoric
Epimone
(Greek: ἐπιμονή — “persistence”) The frequent repetition of a phrase or question — dwelling on a point with insistent returns — to drive home an argument through sheer rhetorical pressure.
Example: “Where was the oversight? Where was the accountability? Where was the leadership we were promised?”
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Catilinam uses epimone — the relentless rhetorical interrogation “How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?” — as its structural spine.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Epimone
Epistrophe (Antistrophe / Epiphora)
(Greek: ἐπιστροφή — “a turning toward”) The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences — the mirror image of anaphora. Creates a hammering, conclusive effect.
Example: “…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” — Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Famous Work: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863) contains the most celebrated epistrophe in American oratory; Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13 (“…but have not charity…”) repeats the device with haunting power.
Source: LitCharts – Epistrophe
Epithet
(Greek: ἐπίθετον — “added, attributed”) An adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality or attribute considered characteristic of a person or thing — used as a label, honorific, or characterization. Can be celebratory or pejorative.
Example: “Alexander the Great,” “Ivan the Terrible,” “the swift-footed Achilles,” “Honest Abe.”
Famous Work: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are the foundational texts of the Homeric or “fixed” epithet — formulaic phrases repeated to fill a metrical space and identify characters: “grey-eyed Athena,” “rosy-fingered Dawn.”
Source: Wikipedia – Epithet
Epitome
(Greek: ἐπιτομή — “a cutting on the surface”) A brief summary or abstract of a longer work — or, more broadly, a person or thing that is a perfect representative example of a class or type.
Example: “She was the epitome of grace under pressure.” / A condensed digest of a legal argument presented to a busy judge.
Famous Work: The Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) includes advice on brevitas (concision) and epitome as strategic tools; Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations functions as an epitome of Western literary culture.
Source: Wikipedia – Epitome
Epizeuxis
(Greek: ἐπίζευξις — “fastening together”) The immediate repetition of a word or phrase with no intervening words — used for extreme emotional emphasis or urgency.
Example: “Never, never, never give up.” — Winston Churchill / “The horror! The horror!” — Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Famous Work: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899): Kurtz’s dying words. Shakespeare’s King Lear: the five-fold “Never” over Cordelia’s body.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Epizeuxis
Equivocation
(Latin: aequivocatio — “equal voice”) The use of ambiguous language to mislead or avoid commitment — either a rhetorical strategy of deliberate vagueness or a logical fallacy in which a word shifts meaning mid-argument.
Example: “I never said she stole the money.” (shifts emphasis depending on which word is stressed — seven different meanings) / Fallacious: “The sign said ‘fine for parking here.’ So I parked — it’s fine!”
Famous Work: The Witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth speak entirely in equivocations: “fair is foul and foul is fair,” prophecies that are technically true but deliberately misleading.
Source: Wikipedia – Equivocation
Ethos
(Greek: ἦθος — “character, custom, habit”) One of Aristotle’s three primary modes of persuasion — the appeal to the credibility, character, and trustworthiness of the speaker. Ethos can be established through demonstrated expertise, moral integrity, goodwill toward the audience, and appropriate style.
Example: A climate scientist citing her 30 years of fieldwork and peer-reviewed publications before presenting data on global warming is building ethos.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric (c. 350 BCE) Book I Chapter 2 defines ethos as the most powerful of the three appeals; Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (c. 95 CE) argues that the ideal orator must be a vir bonus — a good man speaking well.
Source: Wikipedia – Ethos
Euphemism
(Greek: εὐφημισμός — “use of auspicious words”) The substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one considered too harsh, blunt, or unpleasant — used in social convention, political discourse, and propaganda.
Example: “Passed away” for “died”; “collateral damage” for “civilian deaths”; “enhanced interrogation” for “torture”; “downsizing” for “mass layoffs.”
Famous Work: Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” (1946) and 1984 (1949) contain the most powerful critiques of euphemism in political speech; the term “Newspeak” captures the totalitarian extreme.
Source: Wikipedia – Euphemism
Euphony
(Greek: εὐφωνία — “good sound”) The use of pleasing, harmonious sounds in language — smooth vowels, liquid consonants (l, m, n, r), and gentle rhythms that create a musical quality. The opposite of cacophony.
Example: “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, / Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.” — W.B. Yeats
Famous Work: Keats is the supreme master of euphony in English poetry; his “Ode to Autumn” (1820) is a sustained study in acoustic beauty.
Source: LitCharts – Euphony
Euthyphronia
(Greek: εὐθυφρονία — “straight thinking”) A figure in which one proceeds by a straightforward reasoning chain — making the logical steps explicit and leading the audience inescapably toward a conclusion.
Example: “If we accept that all citizens deserve equal protection, and if we accept that this group is composed of citizens, then we cannot deny them equal protection.”
Famous Work: Lincoln’s argumentation in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) is celebrated for its euthyphronic clarity — building inevitable logical chains that trapped Douglas in contradictions.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Evidentia (Enargeia / Hypotyposis)
(Latin: “distinctness, vividness”) The rhetorical technique of describing events, scenes, or persons with such vivid detail that they seem to be happening before the audience’s eyes — making the absent present through language.
Example: A lawyer who describes a crime scene so vividly that jurors feel they are standing in the room is deploying evidentia.
Famous Work: Thucydides’ reconstruction of the plague of Athens (History of the Peloponnesian War, c. 400 BCE) is the classical model of evidentia; Hemingway’s war journalism aspires to the same effect.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Evidentia
Exordium
(Latin: “beginning, introduction”) The opening section of a classical oration — designed to capture the audience’s attention (attentio), establish goodwill (benevolentia), and make the audience receptive to the argument (docilis). Corresponds to the modern “introduction.”
Example: A speaker who opens with a striking anecdote, then acknowledges the importance of the occasion, then previews the speech’s argument, is executing a classical exordium.
Famous Work: Cicero’s Pro Archia opens with one of the most celebrated exordia in classical literature; the opening of Beowulf — “Hwæt!” — functions as a poetic exordium commanding attention.
Source: Wikipedia – Exordium
Extended Metaphor (Conceit)
(Greek/Latin: metaphora + “extended”) A metaphor that is developed and sustained across multiple sentences, paragraphs, or an entire work — elaborating a comparison in increasing detail rather than deploying it as a single image.
Example: Comparing life to a journey and then systematically developing the road, the weather, the fellow travelers, the destination, and the vehicle over several paragraphs.
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” monologue in As You Like It is an extended metaphor; Donne’s compass conceit in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (1611) is the metaphysical exemplar.
Source: LitCharts – Extended Metaphor
F
Fallacy (Logical)
(Latin: fallacia — “deceit, trick”) An error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid or unsound — either a formal fallacy (structural error in logic) or an informal fallacy (error in content, relevance, or evidence). The systematic study of fallacies is central to both logic and rhetoric.
Example: “If we allow same-sex marriage, next they’ll want to marry animals.” (slippery slope fallacy)
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Sophistici Elenchi (On Sophistical Refutations, c. 350 BCE) is the first systematic catalog of logical fallacies; Schopenhauer’s The Art of Being Right (1831) identifies 38 rhetorical stratagems.
Source: Wikipedia – Fallacy
False Analogy
(Modern/Latin) A logical fallacy in which a comparison is drawn between two things that are not sufficiently similar in the relevant respect — drawing a conclusion from a misleading parallel.
Example: “Running a government is just like running a business — so we need a CEO, not a politician, in charge.”
Famous Work: Plato’s Republic uses analogies extensively; Aristotle’s Rhetoric warns against false analogies as a form of fallacious paradigm (rhetorical example).
Source: Wikipedia – False Analogy
False Cause (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc)
(Latin: “after this, therefore because of this”) The fallacy of assuming that because one event followed another, the first caused the second. A foundational error in causal reasoning.
Example: “Every time I wear my lucky socks, we win. My socks cause us to win.”
Famous Work: Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) contains the most rigorous philosophical analysis of causation and the errors involved in false cause reasoning.
Source: Wikipedia – Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
False Dichotomy (False Dilemma)
(Latin/Modern: fallacia + Greek: δίλημμα) A fallacy that presents only two options as if they were exhaustive, when in fact more alternatives exist — forcing a choice between a false binary.
Example: “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” — George W. Bush, 2001 / “Love it or leave it.”
Famous Work: George W. Bush’s post-9/11 address to Congress (2001) is the most cited modern political example; Orwell’s 1984 depicts a system built entirely on false dichotomies.
Source: Wikipedia – False Dilemma
Figura Etymologica
(Latin: “etymological figure”) The use of two or more words that share the same etymological root in close proximity — creating a punning or emphatic connection through the repeated root.
Example: “He lived a life worth living.” / “Sleep the sleep of the just.” / “I dreamed a dream.”
Famous Work: The King James Bible is rich with figura etymologica; Shakespeare deploys it constantly, as in “the course of true love never did run smooth.”
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Figures of Speech
(Latin: figurae verborum / figurae sententiarum) The broad category encompassing all departures from ordinary language use — including tropes (changes in meaning) and schemes (changes in form or arrangement). The classical tradition distinguished hundreds of individual figures.
Example: Metaphor, simile, alliteration, anaphora, chiasmus, hyperbole, irony, and personification are all figures of speech.
Famous Work: The Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) provides the first systematic Latin catalog; Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria Book IX is the most thorough classical treatment.
Source: Wikipedia – Figure of Speech
Forensic Rhetoric (Dikanikon)
(Greek: δικανικόν — “judicial”) One of Aristotle’s three genres of rhetoric, concerned with past actions — accusing or defending in a legal or quasi-legal context. Its temporal orientation is the past; its central values are justice and injustice.
Example: A prosecutor’s closing argument; a defense attorney’s summation; a Senate impeachment trial speech.
Famous Work: Cicero’s courtroom speeches — particularly Pro Milone, Pro Archia, and the Verrine Orations — are the supreme examples of forensic rhetoric in the Western tradition.
Source: Wikipedia – Judicial Rhetoric
Foreshadowing
(Modern English: “casting a shadow before”) The use of hints, symbols, or indirect references early in a narrative to suggest or anticipate events that will occur later — creating dramatic tension and structural coherence.
Example: The storm that opens King Lear foreshadows the chaos and psychological unraveling to come; the raven in Poe’s poem foreshadows grief.
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet opens with the prologue’s “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life” — foreshadowing the entire play’s outcome before it begins.
Source: LitCharts – Foreshadowing
Frame Narrative
(Modern: derived from rhetorical dispositio) A narrative structure in which one story serves as a container or “frame” for other embedded stories — a rhetorical device that establishes context, reliability, and perspective.
Example: A traveler tells stories to companions on a journey; the journey is the frame, the stories are embedded.
Famous Work: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (c. 1387–1400) and Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353) are the defining examples; Conrad’s Heart of Darkness uses Marlow’s narrative as a frame within a frame.
Source: Wikipedia – Frame Narrative
Framing (Rhetorical)
(Modern: from cognitive linguistics and communication theory) The strategic selection and emphasis of certain aspects of a reality while backgrounding others — shaping how an audience perceives, interprets, and evaluates an issue through the choice of language, metaphor, and context.
Example: Describing the same policy as “tax relief” (frames taxation as a burden) versus “investing in public services” (frames taxation as contribution) activates entirely different cognitive and emotional responses.
Famous Work: George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant (2004) and Moral Politics (1996) are the most influential analyses of political framing; Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974) is the sociological foundation.
Source: Wikipedia – Framing (Social Sciences)
Freytag’s Pyramid
(Named for Gustav Freytag, 1863) A structural model for dramatic and narrative organization consisting of five stages: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement (resolution). Derived from Aristotle’s analysis of tragedy and applied to narrative rhetoric.
Example: In Hamlet: exposition (Danish court), rising action (ghost, play-within-a-play), climax (Hamlet kills Polonius), falling action (Ophelia’s death, Laertes’ anger), dénouement (final duel, deaths).
Famous Work: Gustav Freytag’s Technique of the Drama (1863) codified the model; it derives from Aristotle’s Poetics and is now standard in narrative theory and screenwriting pedagogy.
Source: Wikipedia – Dramatic Structure
— End of D–F —
G
Genethliacon
(Greek: γενεθλιακόν — “of or relating to a birthday”) A poem or speech composed in honor of someone’s birthday — a subgenre of epideictic rhetoric celebrating the occasion of birth or anniversary.
Example: A formal ode composed for a monarch’s birthday; a toast at a milestone birthday dinner celebrating a person’s life and achievements.
Famous Work: Horace composed genethliaca for patrons; Spenser’s Epithalamion (1595) blends birthday and wedding celebration in the same epideictic mode.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Genre (Rhetorical)
(Greek: γένος — “kind, class, type”) A category or type of discourse defined by shared conventions of form, purpose, audience, and situation — the recognition that certain recurring rhetorical situations call forth predictably similar responses. Genre theory is a cornerstone of contemporary rhetorical studies.
Example: The job application letter, the wedding toast, the political concession speech, and the product recall notice are all distinct rhetorical genres with their own conventions.
Famous Work: Carolyn Miller’s landmark essay “Genre as Social Action” (1984) redefined genre for modern rhetoric; Aristotle’s three genres of oratory (Rhetoric, c. 350 BCE) are the classical foundation.
Source: Wikipedia – Rhetorical Genre
Gradatio
(Latin: “step-by-step progression”) A figure of progressive amplification — either a stepped series of clauses in which the last word of each becomes the first of the next (a form of anadiplosis extended into a chain), or simply an arrangement of ideas in ascending order of importance. Closely related to climax and auxesis.
Example: “Work produces wealth; wealth produces leisure; leisure produces learning; learning produces wisdom; wisdom produces virtue.”
Famous Work: The King James Bible, Romans 5:3–5: “tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope” — one of the most celebrated gradatio chains in English.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Gradatio
Grammatical Metaphor
(Modern: from systemic functional linguistics, M.A.K. Halliday) The encoding of one grammatical function in the form of another — particularly the nominalization of processes (turning verbs into nouns) to create abstraction, authority, or conceptual density. A key feature of academic, legal, and bureaucratic discourse.
Example: “The investigation of the failure of the implementation of the policy…” (multiple nominalizations) vs. “We investigated why the policy failed.” (direct, verbal expression)
Famous Work: M.A.K. Halliday’s An Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985) identifies grammatical metaphor as central to the register differences between spoken and written language.
Source: Wikipedia – Grammatical Metaphor
Grounds (Toulmin Model)
(Modern: Stephen Toulmin, 1958) In Toulmin’s model of argumentation, the grounds are the facts, evidence, or data upon which a claim is based — what the arguer points to as support. Distinguished from the warrant (the reasoning principle connecting grounds to claim) and the backing (support for the warrant).
Example: Claim: “This patient has pneumonia.” Grounds: “Her chest X-ray shows bilateral infiltrates and she has a fever of 103°F.”
Famous Work: Stephen Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument (1958) introduced this model, which transformed both rhetorical theory and informal logic pedagogy.
Source: Wikipedia – Toulmin’s Argument Model
Guerrilla Rhetoric
(Modern: from guerrilla warfare + rhetoric) Unconventional, subversive rhetorical strategies deployed by marginalized or dissident groups to challenge dominant power structures — using surprise, appropriation, culture jamming, and unauthorized communication channels.
Example: Banksy’s street art subverting corporate advertising; ACT UP’s die-ins disrupting government meetings during the AIDS crisis; the Yes Men impersonating corporate spokespeople to expose hypocrisy.
Famous Work: bell hooks’s Talking Back (1989) and the broader tradition of countercultural rhetoric; Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979) analyzes subcultural rhetorical appropriation.
Source: Wikipedia – Culture Jamming
H
Harangue
(French/Italian: aringa — “public speech, tirade”) A lengthy, passionate, and often aggressive speech — particularly one addressed to a crowd and designed to stir strong emotion. Can be either a legitimate rousing address or a bullying, abusive lecture.
Example: A revolutionary leader addressing a crowd in the street before a march; a coach’s locker-room tirade before a championship game.
Famous Work: Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act III) is harangue elevated to high art — progressively inflaming the Roman mob against the conspirators.
Source: Wikipedia – Harangue
Hasty Generalization
(Modern/Latin: festinata generalizatio) A logical fallacy in which a sweeping conclusion is drawn from an insufficient or unrepresentative sample of evidence.
Example: “I met two rude people from that city — everyone there must be unfriendly.”
Famous Work: Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620) identifies “hasty generalization” as one of the fundamental Idols of the Tribe — errors built into human cognition.
Source: Wikipedia – Hasty Generalization
Hendiadys
(Greek: ἓν διὰ δυοῖν — “one through two”) The expression of a single complex idea through two nouns joined by a conjunction, rather than a noun modified by an adjective — splitting one concept into two coordinate terms.
Example: “Sound and fury” (= furious sound) / “Nice and warm” (= nicely warm) / “Bread and butter” (= buttered bread)
Famous Work: Shakespeare is the supreme English master of hendiadys; George T. Wright’s essay “Hendiadys and Hamlet” (1981) identifies over 66 instances in Hamlet alone: “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
Source: Wikipedia – Hendiadys
Hermeneutics
(Greek: ἑρμηνευτική — “interpretive art,” from Hermes, messenger of the gods) The theory and practice of interpretation — particularly of texts, symbols, and meaningful human action. As a rhetorical concept, hermeneutics asks how meaning is constructed, communicated, and understood across contexts.
Example: A biblical scholar interpreting an ancient parable in light of its historical context; a lawyer interpreting the original intent of a constitutional clause.
Famous Work: Schleiermacher’s lectures on hermeneutics (early 19th c.), Dilthey’s Introduction to the Human Sciences (1883), and Gadamer’s Truth and Method (1960) are the foundational modern texts.
Source: Wikipedia – Hermeneutics
Homily
(Greek: ὁμιλία — “assembly, discourse”) A religious or moral speech — particularly a sermon on a scriptural text — intended to instruct, edify, and exhort an audience. Homiletic rhetoric is a major subfield of rhetorical studies.
Example: A Sunday sermon interpreting a biblical passage and applying it to contemporary moral challenges.
Famous Work: Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana (397–426 CE) is the foundational treatise on Christian homiletic rhetoric; Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741) is the most famous American sermon.
Source: Wikipedia – Homily
Homoioteleuton
(Greek: ὁμοιοτέλευτον — “similar endings”) The repetition of similar or identical endings in successive words or clauses — producing a rhyme-like effect within prose, often used for emphasis or rhythm. The ancestor of end rhyme.
Example: “We came, we saw, we conquered.” / “The pity of it, the shame of it, the scandal of it.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s periodic sentences frequently employ homoioteleuton at the ends of cola to create rhythmic closure; the device appears throughout the King James Bible.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Homoioteleuton
Hypallage (Transferred Epithet)
(Greek: ὑπαλλαγή — “exchange”) The grammatical transfer of a modifier from the word it logically describes to another word in the same sentence — creating an unexpected, often poetic connection.
Example: “He spent a sleepless night.” (It is the man, not the night, who cannot sleep.) / “The ploughman homeward plods his weary way.” — Gray (the way is not weary; the ploughman is.)
Famous Work: Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751) is celebrated for its hypallages; Virgil’s Aeneid uses them throughout.
Source: Wikipedia – Transferred Epithet
Hyperbaton
(Greek: ὑπέρβατον — “stepping over”) A broad term for any deviation from normal word order — including anastrophe, tmesis, and hysteron proteron. Used to create emphasis, poetic effect, or a sense of elevation.
Example: “This I must do.” / “Object there was none.” — Poe / “Whom you seek, I am he.”
Famous Work: Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) is the supreme English deployment of hyperbaton — his Latinate inversions create a deliberately elevated, alien grandeur.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Hyperbaton
Hyperbole
(Greek: ὑπερβολή — “excess, exaggeration”) A deliberate, extravagant exaggeration used for emphasis or comic effect — not meant to be taken literally, but to intensify an emotional or rhetorical impression.
Example: “I’ve told you a million times!” / “This bag weighs a ton.” / “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Othello: “Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it / Without a prompter.” Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus: “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” — hyperbole as erotic tribute.
Source: LitCharts – Hyperbole
Hypophora (Anthypophora / Antapodosis)
(Greek: ὑπόφορα — “carrying under, objection”) A figure in which the speaker raises a question and then immediately answers it — anticipating the audience’s objections and controlling both the question and the response.
Example: “Why do I oppose this bill? Because it would dismantle every protection working families have earned in the last fifty years.”
Famous Work: Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address (1860) is structured almost entirely through hypophora — Lincoln anticipates every Southern objection and systematically demolishes it.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Hypophora
Hypostrophe
(Greek: ὑποστροφή — “turning back to”) The return to a previously stated argument or point — often after a digression — to reinforce it or bring the discourse back to its central concern.
Example: “But let us return to the core question I raised at the outset: who bears responsibility for this failure?”
Famous Work: Cicero’s major orations frequently use hypostrophe to manage complex arguments, returning to a governing theme after extensive elaboration of sub-points.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Hysteron Proteron
(Greek: ὕστερον πρότερον — “later-earlier”) A figure in which the natural or logical order of events is reversed — stating what should come second before what should come first. Can be used for emphasis, speed, or dramatic effect.
Example: “Put on your shoes and socks.” (socks logically come first) / “Fire, ready, aim!” / Virgil: “Let us die, and rush into the heart of the fight.” (die comes before the rush)
Famous Work: Virgil’s Aeneid contains the most cited classical example; Shakespeare uses it in Henry VI, Part 1: “Come, husband, let us home, and die in love.”
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Hysteron Proteron
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Icon (Semiotics / Rhetorical)
(Greek: εἰκών — “image, likeness”) In Peircean semiotics, a sign that resembles or imitates what it represents — as opposed to an index (causal/physical connection) or symbol (arbitrary/conventional). In rhetorical analysis, icons function as persuasive visual arguments.
Example: A portrait photograph of a candidate on a campaign poster; a skull-and-crossbones on a poison label; a red cross on a medical vehicle.
Famous Work: C.S. Peirce’s Collected Papers (1931–1958) develop the icon/index/symbol triad; Roland Barthes’s “Rhetoric of the Image” (1964) applies semiotic analysis to advertising photography.
Source: Wikipedia – Icon (Semiotics)
Imagery
(Latin: imago — “image, likeness”) The use of vivid, descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the five senses — creating mental pictures and sensory experiences that make abstract ideas concrete and emotionally resonant.
Example: “The fog comes / on little cat feet.” — Carl Sandburg (visual + tactile) / “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. / It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.” — Gerard Manley Hopkins (visual + kinetic)
Famous Work: Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819) is among the most densely imagistic poems in English; Shakespeare’s imagery has been the subject of Caroline Spurgeon’s landmark Shakespeare’s Imagery (1935).
Source: LitCharts – Imagery
Implicature
(Modern: H.P. Grice, 1975) What a speaker implies, suggests, or means beyond the literal content of what is said — the inferences an audience draws from what is left unstated, based on the cooperative principles of communication.
Example: Asked “Did you enjoy the party?”, answering “The food was excellent” implies — without stating — that the rest of the party was not enjoyable.
Famous Work: H.P. Grice’s “Logic and Conversation” (1975) introduced conversational implicature via the Cooperative Principle and its maxims (Quantity, Quality, Relation, Manner) — one of the most influential contributions to pragmatics and rhetorical theory.
Source: Wikipedia – Implicature
In Medias Res
(Latin: “into the middle of things”) The narrative technique of beginning a story in the middle of the action — then filling in prior events through flashback, analepsis, or exposition — rather than starting at the chronological beginning.
Example: A novel opens with the protagonist already fleeing a burning building; we learn how the fire started only later.
Famous Work: Homer’s Odyssey opens with Odysseus already trapped on Calypso’s island — ten years into his journey. Horace recommends in medias res in Ars Poetica (c. 19 BCE) as the mark of a skilled epic poet.
Source: Wikipedia – In Medias Res
Induction (Rhetorical)
(Latin: inductio — “leading in”) Reasoning from specific examples or instances to a general conclusion — the rhetorical counterpart of logical induction. Aristotle called the rhetorical form the paradigm (example). Distinguished from the enthymeme, which is deductive.
Example: “Rome fell after expanding beyond its administrative capacity. The Mongol Empire collapsed for the same reason. The British Empire likewise. Therefore, imperial overextension leads to collapse.”
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric Book I discusses the paradigm (rhetorical induction) as one of two primary forms of rhetorical proof; Mill’s System of Logic (1843) is the foundational modern treatment.
Source: Wikipedia – Inductive Reasoning
Innuendo
(Latin: innuere — “to nod toward, hint”) An indirect or subtle suggestion — particularly one that carries a negative or damaging implication — communicated through hint, insinuation, or ambiguity rather than direct statement.
Example: “I’m not saying he stole the money — I’m just saying it’s curious that he could afford a new car the week after the funds went missing.”
Famous Work: Iago’s manipulation of Othello in Shakespeare’s Othello is the supreme dramatic study of innuendo as rhetorical weapon — his hints and insinuations are more devastating than any direct accusation could be.
Source: Wikipedia – Innuendo
Intentional Fallacy
(Modern: W.K. Wimsatt & Monroe Beardsley, 1946) The critical error of judging or interpreting a text primarily by reference to the author’s intentions — rather than by the text itself. A foundational concept of New Criticism that shaped 20th-century rhetorical and literary theory.
Example: Claiming a poem means X because the poet said in an interview that he intended X — rather than reading the text on its own terms.
Famous Work: Wimsatt and Beardsley’s essay “The Intentional Fallacy” (1946) in The Sewanee Review is the foundational text; it provoked a century of debate about authorial intent, meaning, and interpretation.
Source: Wikipedia – Intentional Fallacy
Inventio (Invention)
(Latin: “discovery, finding”) The first of the five classical canons of rhetoric — the art of discovering and selecting arguments, evidence, and appeals appropriate to a given rhetorical situation. Not “inventing” in the creative sense but finding what is already available as persuasive material.
Example: Before writing a persuasive essay, a student brainstorms all possible arguments, counterarguments, examples, analogies, and emotional appeals available — this entire process is inventio.
Famous Work: Cicero’s De Inventione (c. 84 BCE) is dedicated entirely to this canon; the Rhetorica ad Herennium provides practical guidance; Aristotle’s Rhetoric grounds inventio in the topoi (topics/commonplaces).
Source: Wikipedia – Inventio
Invective
(Latin: invectiva — “abusive speech,” from invehere, “to attack”) A sustained verbal attack using harsh, abusive, or vituperative language — a form of psogos (blame rhetoric) that aims to damage, humiliate, or destroy a target’s reputation.
Example: “You are a disgrace to the office you hold, a liar by nature, a coward by instinct, and a traitor by ambition.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Pisonem and Second Philippic against Mark Antony are the classical models of Latin invective; Pope’s Dunciad (1728/1743) is the supreme English literary invective.
Source: Wikipedia – Invective
Irony (Verbal)
(Greek: εἰρωνεία — “dissembling, feigned ignorance”) A mode of expression in which the intended meaning is the opposite of — or sharply different from — the literal meaning of the words used. Distinguished from sarcasm (which is cruder and more overtly hostile) by its subtlety and range of application.
Example: “What a lovely day,” said as the speaker stands in a downpour. / “Oh, he’s a real genius,” said of someone who just locked his keys in the car.
Famous Work: Swift’s A Modest Proposal (1729) is the most sustained and devastating exercise in verbal irony in English literature; Socratic irony (eirōneia) — feigning ignorance to expose others’ false wisdom — is the philosophical archetype.
Source: LitCharts – Irony
Irony (Situational)
(Greek/Modern: εἰρωνεία applied to circumstance) A form of irony arising from a discrepancy between what is expected and what actually occurs — when outcomes are the reverse of what would seem appropriate or anticipated.
Example: A fire station burns down. A police station is robbed. A marriage counselor files for divorce.
Famous Work: Thomas Hardy’s novels are saturated with situational irony; O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” (1905) is perhaps the most celebrated short story built entirely on situational irony.
Source: LitCharts – Situational Irony
Irony (Cosmic / Tragic)
(Greek/Modern) A form of irony in which the universe itself — fate, God, or the structure of existence — seems to mock human aspiration, effort, or expectation. Distinguished from dramatic irony (audience knowledge) and situational irony (reversed outcomes) by its metaphysical scope.
Example: A man who spends his life building a business so his children can inherit it — and dies the day before signing the papers.
Famous Work: Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895) are built on cosmic irony; the book of Job in the Bible enacts it at its most extreme.
Source: Wikipedia – Cosmic Irony
Isocolon
(Greek: ἰσόκωλον — “equal members”) The use of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences of equal or very similar length and grammatical structure — creating a balanced, rhythmic parallelism.
Example: “He came in haste, he spoke in anger, he left in shame.” / “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”
Famous Work: Julius Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici is perfect isocolon; Cicero’s perorations are dense with it; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — “of the people, by the people, for the people” — achieves its power partly through isocolon.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Isocolon
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J
Jargon
(Old French: jargon — “chattering, gibberish”) The specialized vocabulary of a particular profession, trade, discipline, or social group — terms that carry precise meaning within the in-group but may exclude, confuse, or alienate outsiders. Rhetorical analysis treats jargon as both a tool of precision and a mechanism of power.
Example: Medical: “The patient presents with acute myocardial infarction.” Legal: “The defendant is alleged to have committed tortious interference.” Both convey precision within their fields while signaling insider status.
Famous Work: Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” (1946) is the most celebrated critique of jargon in public discourse; Don Watson’s Death Sentences (2003) extends the attack to corporate and bureaucratic language.
Source: Wikipedia – Jargon
Jeremiad
(Hebrew: from Jeremiah, the prophet of lamentation) A long, mournful complaint or denunciation — a speech or piece of writing that catalogs the sins, failures, and moral decline of a society and calls for repentance or reform. Named for the prophet Jeremiah and his Book of Lamentations.
Example: A fiery op-ed cataloging America’s moral failures in race relations, economic inequality, and political corruption, and calling the nation back to its founding ideals.
Famous Work: Sacvan Bercovitch’s The American Jeremiad (1978) traces the genre from Puritan sermons through American political discourse; Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741) is the archetypal American jeremiad.
Source: Wikipedia – Jeremiad
Juxtaposition
(Latin: juxta + positio — “placed next to”) The placement of two contrasting or dissimilar things side by side — without explicit comparison — so that their differences (or surprising similarities) are illuminated by proximity. A fundamental rhetorical and literary device.
Example: A photograph of a gleaming skyscraper rising directly above a tent city. / “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — Dickens
Famous Work: Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859) opens with the most celebrated extended juxtaposition in English literature; William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789–94) is structured entirely on systematic juxtaposition.
Source: LitCharts – Juxtaposition
K
Kairos
(Greek: καιρός — “the right moment, the opportune time”) The concept of the rhetorical moment — the right time, place, and circumstances for a particular argument or action. A speech perfectly suited to its moment achieves kairos; one delivered too early, too late, or in the wrong context fails regardless of its content. One of the most important concepts in classical and contemporary rhetorical theory.
Example: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1863) was strategically timed after a Union military victory — issued at precisely the moment when it could be interpreted as strength rather than desperation. This was a calculated act of kairos.
Famous Work: The Sophists, particularly Gorgias, developed kairos as a core rhetorical concept; Aristotle discusses opportune timing throughout Rhetoric; Carolyn Miller and others have revived it as central to digital and social media rhetoric.
Source: Wikipedia – Kairos
Kenning
(Old Norse: kenning — “recognition, description”) A compound poetic expression used as a substitute for a simple noun — characteristic of Old Norse and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poetry. Kennings compress a descriptive metaphor into a single compound phrase.
Example: “Whale-road” = the sea / “Word-hoard” = vocabulary / “Swan-road” = the ocean / “Battle-dew” = blood / “Sky-candle” = the sun
Famous Work: Beowulf (c. 700–1000 CE) is the richest source of kennings in Old English; the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (c. 1220) catalogs kennings as a formal poetic system.
Source: Wikipedia – Kenning
Koinonia
(Greek: κοινωνία — “fellowship, sharing in common”) A rhetorical figure in which the speaker appeals to a shared sense of community, common values, or mutual interest — inviting the audience to join the speaker in a collective “we.” Builds identification and solidarity.
Example: “We are all in this together — every business owner, every worker, every family in this community depends on the decisions we make in this chamber tonight.”
Famous Work: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) — “With malice toward none, with charity for all” — is a masterwork of koinonia, rebuilding a fractured national community through shared moral language.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
L
Laconic Speech (Laconism)
(Greek: Λακωνικός — “of Laconia/Sparta”) Extreme brevity and conciseness of expression — the use of the fewest possible words to convey maximum meaning. Named for the Spartans of Laconia, who were famous for their terse, direct speech.
Example: When Philip of Macedon sent a threatening message to Sparta — “If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground” — the Spartans replied with one word: “If.”
Famous Work: Plutarch’s Lives preserves the most famous Spartan laconic exchanges; Hemingway’s “iceberg theory” of prose is the modern literary expression of laconic aesthetics.
Source: Wikipedia – Laconic Speech
Leptologia
(Greek: λεπτολογία — “fine, detailed speech”) A figure characterized by attention to minute details — speaking precisely and carefully about fine distinctions, often to demonstrate thoroughness or to preempt misinterpretation.
Example: A lawyer who defines every key term in a contract before arguing its interpretation; a scientist who carefully qualifies the exact conditions under which a finding holds.
Famous Work: Cicero demonstrates leptologia in his forensic speeches when establishing precise legal definitions; Aquinas’s Summa Theologica (c. 1265–1274) models leptologia as a theological method.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Litotes
(Greek: λιτότης — “simplicity, plainness”) An understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by denying its opposite — a double negative that creates ironic emphasis through understatement rather than overstatement.
Example: “Not bad” (= quite good) / “He’s no fool” (= he’s very clever) / “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
Famous Work: Beowulf is saturated with litotes — a feature of Old English heroic style. Jane Austen’s entire rhetorical style is built on litotic understatement: “It is a truth universally acknowledged…” operates as ironic litotes at the level of tone.
Source: LitCharts – Litotes
Locus Communis (Commonplace)
(Latin: locus communis — “common place”; Greek: topos koinos) A stock argument, theme, or line of reasoning that can be applied across many different situations — a ready-made rhetorical resource available to any speaker. Also, in Renaissance tradition, a passage collected and stored in a commonplace book for later rhetorical use.
Example: “The welfare of the people is the highest law” is a locus communis applicable to nearly any political argument. “History will judge us” is a commonplace of deliberative rhetoric.
Famous Work: Erasmus’s De Copia (1512) and the Renaissance commonplace book tradition systematized the collection of loci; Aristotle’s Topics is the foundational theoretical text.
Source: Wikipedia – Locus Communis
Logos
(Greek: λόγος — “word, reason, discourse”) One of Aristotle’s three primary modes of persuasion — the appeal to reason, logic, and evidence. Encompasses the use of data, statistics, logical arguments, precedents, and systematic reasoning to persuade an audience.
Example: A public health official presenting peer-reviewed studies, mortality statistics, and epidemiological modeling to argue for a mask mandate is making a logos-based argument.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric (c. 350 BCE) defines logos as persuasion achieved through the argument itself; Descartes’ Discourse on the Method (1637) and Mill’s System of Logic (1843) represent the Western logos tradition at its most systematic.
Source: Wikipedia – Logos
Logical Form
(Modern/Latin: forma logica) The abstract structure of an argument — stripped of its specific content — that determines its validity. Understanding logical form allows rhetoricians to evaluate whether an argument’s conclusion necessarily follows from its premises.
Example: Modus ponens: “If P, then Q. P. Therefore, Q.” / Modus tollens: “If P, then Q. Not Q. Therefore, not P.”
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (c. 350 BCE) is the founding text; Frege’s Begriffsschrift (1879) and Russell & Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica (1910–13) formalized modern symbolic logic.
Source: Wikipedia – Logical Form
Logography
(Greek: λογογραφία — “speech writing”) The professional practice of writing speeches for others to deliver — a practice that flourished in ancient Athens where citizens had to speak for themselves in court but could hire expert speechwriters. The original ghostwriting.
Example: Lysias of Athens was the most celebrated logographer of the 5th–4th centuries BCE, writing over 200 speeches for clients to deliver in Athenian courts.
Famous Work: The extant speeches of Lysias (Orations, c. 403–380 BCE) are the primary surviving corpus of Athenian logography; Plato debates the ethics of the practice in Phaedrus.
Source: Wikipedia – Logography (Rhetoric)
Lyceum
(Greek: Λύκειον — from Apollo Lykeios) The philosophical school founded by Aristotle in Athens (335 BCE) — and by extension, a term for any institution or forum devoted to public education and intellectual discourse. The Lyceum movement of 19th-century America created thousands of public lecture venues that shaped democratic rhetorical culture.
Example: The American Lyceum movement (1826–1860) created the infrastructure for public intellectual life — Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau all spoke on the lyceum circuit.
Famous Work: Emerson’s “The American Scholar” (1837) was originally a lyceum address; Carl Bode’s The American Lyceum (1956) is the definitive historical study.
Source: Wikipedia – Lyceum Movement
Lyric (Mode / Register)
(Greek: λυρικός — “singing to the lyre”) A mode of discourse — in poetry and rhetoric — characterized by subjectivity, emotional intensity, and the expression of personal feeling, as opposed to the narrative (epic) or dramatic modes. Lyric rhetoric prioritizes pathos and intimate address.
Example: A personal essay reflecting on grief; a confessional poem; a speech in which a leader shares personal vulnerability to build emotional connection with an audience.
Famous Work: Sappho’s fragments (c. 600 BCE) are the earliest surviving Western lyric poetry; the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible are the most widely read lyric texts in history; Keats’s Odes (1819) represent the pinnacle of English lyric achievement.
Source: Wikipedia – Lyric Poetry
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M
Malapropism
(French: mal à propos — “inappropriate”) The accidental or comic substitution of a word for one that sounds similar but means something entirely different — named for Mrs. Malaprop, the character in Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775) famous for this error.
Example: “He’s the very pineapple of politeness” (= pinnacle) / “I am not under the affluence of incohol” (= influence of alcohol) / “For all intensive purposes” (= intents and purposes).
Famous Work: Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775) — Mrs. Malaprop’s speech is the defining literary example. Dogberry in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing anticipates the type.
Source: Wikipedia – Malapropism
Maxim (Gnome / Sententia)
(Greek: γνώμη — “opinion, judgment”; Latin: sententia — “opinion, saying”) A short, pithy statement expressing a general truth, moral principle, or rule of conduct — typically authoritative in tone and designed to be memorable. Distinguished from the aphorism by its explicitly normative or prescriptive character.
Example: “Haste makes waste.” / “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” / “Power tends to corrupt.”
Famous Work: Aristotle discusses the gnome in Rhetoric Book II as a rhetorical device that lends authority because it appears to express universal wisdom. Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732–1758) is America’s greatest collection of maxims.
Source: Wikipedia – Maxim (Philosophy)
Memoria (Memory)
(Latin: “memory”) The fourth of the five classical canons of rhetoric — the art of memorizing a speech or internalizing its arguments so thoroughly that it can be delivered with naturalness, flexibility, and power. Ancient rhetoricians developed elaborate mnemonic systems, including the method of loci (memory palace).
Example: Cicero reportedly memorized entire orations using the method of loci — mentally placing arguments in rooms of a familiar building and “walking through” it during delivery.
Famous Work: The Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) contains the earliest surviving account of the memory palace technique; Frances Yates’s The Art of Memory (1966) is the definitive modern study.
Source: Wikipedia – Art of Memory
Meiosis (Understatement)
(Greek: μείωσις — “diminution, lessening”) Deliberate understatement used to diminish or belittle — either for comic effect, ironic emphasis, or to minimize something that deserves greater weight. Distinguished from litotes (which denies the opposite) by being a direct understatement.
Example: Describing the sinking of the Titanic as “a bit of a maritime inconvenience.” / “It’s just a flesh wound.” — The Black Knight, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Famous Work: Hemingway’s entire aesthetic of understatement is rooted in meiosis; The Sun Also Rises (1926) describes catastrophic emotional damage in the flattest possible language.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Meiosis
Merismus
(Greek: μερισμός — “dividing, partitioning”) A figure of speech in which a whole is referred to by enumerating its parts — or conversely, in which a totality is expressed through a pairing of opposites that together encompass everything.
Example: “He searched high and low.” (high + low = everywhere) / “Young and old came to hear him speak.” (young + old = everyone) / “Lock, stock, and barrel.” (the parts of a gun = the whole thing)
Famous Work: The Bible uses merismus extensively — “the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) means the entire created universe; the Psalms are dense with the figure.
Source: Wikipedia – Merismus
Metalepsis
(Greek: μετάληψις — “participation, substitution”) A figure in which one metaphor is understood through reference to another — a trope built on a trope, creating a chain of figurative substitutions. Also used in narratology to describe the transgression of narrative levels (a character addressing the author, or the narrator entering the story).
Example: “He has reached the end of his rope” uses a metaphor (rope = patience/resources) whose vehicle itself contains another implied metaphor (rope’s end = death or failure).
Famous Work: Gérard Genette’s Narrative Discourse (1972) develops the narratological sense of metalepsis; Shakespeare’s plays-within-plays (Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) enact metaleptic boundary crossing.
Source: Wikipedia – Metalepsis
Metaphor
(Greek: μεταφορά — “transfer, carrying over”) A direct comparison between two unlike things — asserting that one is the other — in order to illuminate a quality, relationship, or idea that literal language cannot capture as powerfully. One of the two fundamental tropes (with metonymy) identified by Roman Jakobson as organizing all language.
Example: “All the world’s a stage.” — Shakespeare / “Life is a journey.” / “Time is money.”
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Poetics (c. 335 BCE) calls metaphor “the greatest thing by far” in style; George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (1980) argues that metaphor is not ornamental but constitutive of all human thought.
Source: LitCharts – Metaphor
Metonymy
(Greek: μετωνυμία — “change of name”) A figure of substitution in which the name of one thing is used to refer to something closely associated with it — not through resemblance (as in metaphor) but through contiguity, causation, or institutional association.
Example: “The White House announced today…” (White House = the President/administration) / “The pen is mightier than the sword.” (pen = writing/ideas; sword = military force) / “Hollywood” for the American film industry.
Famous Work: Roman Jakobson’s “Two Aspects of Language” (1956) identifies metonymy as one of the two poles of all language alongside metaphor; Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar operates heavily through political metonymy.
Source: LitCharts – Metonymy
Mimesis
(Greek: μίμησις — “imitation, representation”) The imitation or representation of reality in art and rhetoric — one of the oldest and most contested concepts in Western aesthetics. Plato distrusted mimesis as twice removed from truth; Aristotle rehabilitated it as the natural and pleasurable basis of art.
Example: A historical novel that reconstructs the speech patterns, dress, and customs of a past era; a documentary film; a rhetor who adopts the voice of a historical figure to make an argument.
Famous Work: Plato’s Republic (c. 380 BCE) Books III and X attack mimesis; Aristotle’s Poetics defends it; Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946) is the 20th century’s greatest study.
Source: Wikipedia – Mimesis
Mnemonic Device
(Greek: μνημονικός — “of or relating to memory”) Any technique, pattern, or formula designed to aid memory — including acronyms, rhymes, visual associations, rhythmic structures, and the method of loci. Rhetorical mnemonics were central to classical oratorical training.
Example: “Every Good Boy Does Fine” (notes on a musical staff: E-G-B-D-F) / “ROYGBIV” (colors of the spectrum) / The rhyme “Thirty days hath September…”
Famous Work: The Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) contains the earliest systematic treatment; Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein (2011) popularizes the ancient memory palace technique for modern readers.
Source: Wikipedia – Mnemonic
Mood (Rhetorical / Grammatical)
(Latin: modus — “manner, measure”) The grammatical and rhetorical register that signals the speaker’s attitude toward the content of an utterance — whether it is stated as fact (indicative), command (imperative), wish or hypothesis (subjunctive), or possibility (conditional). Rhetorical mood shapes how an audience receives and responds to an argument.
Example: “The policy is effective.” (indicative — asserting fact) vs. “Implement the policy.” (imperative — commanding) vs. “If the policy were implemented, outcomes would improve.” (subjunctive — hypothetical)
Famous Work: Classical grammarians from Donatus to Priscian codified grammatical mood; modern linguists like Halliday analyze mood as central to the interpersonal function of language in An Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985).
Source: Wikipedia – Grammatical Mood
Moral Argument (Ethical Proof)
(Greek: ἦθος — see Ethos) An argument grounded in moral principle, ethical duty, or values — appealing to what an audience believes is right, just, or virtuous rather than (or in addition to) what is expedient or logical.
Example: “We should not torture prisoners — not because it is strategically ineffective, but because it degrades our humanity and violates the fundamental dignity every person is owed.”
Famous Work: Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) is the philosophical foundation of duty-based moral argument; Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963) is its greatest American rhetorical expression.
Source: Wikipedia – Moral Argument
Motif
(French/Italian: motivo — “motive, reason”) A recurring element — image, symbol, phrase, idea, or situation — that appears throughout a work and contributes to its theme or meaning. Distinguished from theme (the abstract idea) by being a concrete, recurring element that embodies or signals the theme.
Example: The green light in The Great Gatsby is a motif representing Gatsby’s unattainable dream; the handkerchief in Othello is a motif of fidelity and betrayal.
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Macbeth uses blood as its central motif — appearing in imagery, dialogue, and action from the first scene to the last; Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) deploys color motifs with extraordinary consistency.
Source: LitCharts – Motif
Mythos (Narrative / Plot)
(Greek: μῦθος — “story, plot, myth”) In Aristotle’s Poetics, mythos is the arrangement of incidents — the plot — which he identifies as the “soul of tragedy.” More broadly, mythos refers to the narrative or story-world of a culture — its foundational myths, shared stories, and collective imagination.
Example: The American mythos of the “self-made man” shapes political rhetoric about taxation, welfare, and individual responsibility; the mythos of the heroic journey underlies campaign narratives.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Poetics (c. 335 BCE); Roland Barthes’s Mythologies (1957) analyzes how modern culture naturalizes ideology through mythos; Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) maps the universal monomyth.
Source: Wikipedia – Mythos
N
Narrative (Narration / Narratio)
(Latin: narratio — “a telling, account”) In classical rhetoric, the narratio is the second part of a speech — the statement of facts, background, or story that provides context for the argument. More broadly, narrative is the fundamental human mode of organizing experience into meaningful sequence — story as the primary vehicle of rhetorical persuasion.
Example: In a trial, the prosecution’s opening statement narrating the events of the alleged crime is a narratio; Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm suggests all human communication is fundamentally story-based.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics both treat narrative as central; Walter Fisher’s Human Communication as Narration (1987) develops the narrative paradigm as an alternative to the rational-world model of argumentation.
Source: Wikipedia – Narratio
Noema
(Greek: νόημα — “thought, meaning”) A figure of obscure, difficult, or ambiguous expression that requires effort or penetration to understand — a deliberately veiled or condensed statement that rewards careful interpretation.
Example: An oracle’s pronouncement that is only understood in retrospect; a riddling proverb whose meaning shifts with context.
Famous Work: The Delphic Oracle’s pronouncements in Herodotus’s Histories are the classical model of noema; the riddling language of the Witches in Macbeth operates similarly.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Non Sequitur
(Latin: “it does not follow”) A conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the preceding argument or context — a failure of inferential connection, either accidental or deployed for comic, surreal, or disorienting effect.
Example: “She’s an excellent pianist, so she’d make a great accountant.” / “My neighbor drives a blue car. Therefore, we should raise the minimum wage.”
Famous Work: Lewis Carroll deploys non sequitur as a structural principle in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) — the Hatter’s tea party is a sustained exercise in comic non sequitur.
Source: Wikipedia – Non Sequitur
Nostalgia (Rhetorical)
(Greek: νόστος + ἄλγος — “homecoming” + “pain”) The rhetorical invocation of an idealized past — real or imagined — to generate emotional identification, motivate action, or critique the present. A powerful and frequently manipulated appeal in political and advertising rhetoric.
Example: “Make America Great Again” invokes nostalgic rhetoric by implying a better past to which return is possible; advertising for heritage brands frequently deploys nostalgic imagery.
Famous Work: Fred Davis’s Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia (1979); Susan Stewart’s On Longing (1984) analyzes nostalgia as a rhetorical and cultural structure; Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” campaign is the political archetype.
Source: Wikipedia – Nostalgia
O
Occupatio
(Latin: “taking possession”; Greek: prolepsis in some uses) A figure in which the speaker pretends to pass over something while actually stating it — a variant of apophasis / paralipsis. The speaker “occupies” the rhetorical ground by claiming not to occupy it.
Example: “I could mention his three drunk driving convictions, but I won’t stoop to that level.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Verrem and Philippicae deploy occupatio as a forensic weapon — the accusation lands with full force while the speaker maintains plausible deniability of having made it.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Occupatio
Onomastics (Naming)
(Greek: ὀνομαστική — “the art of naming”) The study of names and naming — and rhetorically, the strategic use of names, labels, and titles to shape perception. How something is named determines how it is perceived, argued about, and acted upon.
Example: Calling the same policy “death panels” vs. “end-of-life counseling”; calling a military action a “war” vs. a “police action” vs. a “humanitarian intervention.”
Famous Work: Orwell’s 1984 (1949) and “Politics and the English Language” (1946) are the most powerful treatments; George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant (2004) shows how naming frames political debate.
Source: Wikipedia – Onomastics
Onomatopoeia
(Greek: ὀνοματοποιία — “word-making”) The formation or use of words whose sound imitates or suggests the thing or action they describe — sound mimicking meaning at the most fundamental phonetic level.
Example: “Buzz,” “hiss,” “crash,” “murmur,” “sizzle,” “thud,” “cuckoo,” “splash.”
Famous Work: Tennyson’s “The Princess” (1847): “The moan of doves in immemorial elms, / And murmuring of innumerable bees” — one of the most celebrated passages of sustained onomatopoeia in English poetry.
Source: LitCharts – Onomatopoeia
Oratio Recta / Oratio Obliqua
(Latin: “direct speech / indirect speech”) The distinction between direct speech (reporting someone’s words verbatim, in quotation marks) and indirect speech (paraphrasing or summarizing what was said). Rhetorically, the choice between them shapes authenticity, authority, and the speaker’s relationship to the reported voice.
Example: Direct: He said, “I will never surrender.” / Indirect: He said that he would never surrender.
Famous Work: Tacitus’s Annals strategically alternates between direct and indirect speech to shape the reader’s trust in different historical voices; the technique is theorized in classical grammar from Donatus onward.
Source: Wikipedia – Direct and Indirect Speech
Oxymoron
(Greek: ὀξύμωρον — “sharp-dull,” pointedly foolish) The conjunction of two contradictory or incongruous terms in a single expression — a compressed paradox that creates meaning through apparent contradiction.
Example: “Deafening silence.” / “Living death.” / “Bittersweet.” / “Jumbo shrimp.” / “Controlled chaos.”
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet opens with a cascade of oxymora: “O heavy lightness, serious vanity, / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health.”
Source: LitCharts – Oxymoron
Occupatio
See entry above. (Cross-reference: Paralipsis, Apophasis, Praeteritio)
Optatio
(Latin: “wish, desire”) A figure in which the speaker expresses a fervent wish — either as a genuine longing or as a rhetorical intensification that communicates the depth of feeling about a subject.
Example: “Would to God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” — 2 Samuel 18:33 / “O that this too, too solid flesh would melt.” — Hamlet
Famous Work: The laments of 2 Samuel and the Psalms are the classical scriptural examples; Shakespeare’s soliloquies frequently begin with optatio as a portal into the character’s inner life.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Optatio
Oration
(Latin: oratio — “speech, discourse”) A formal public speech — particularly one delivered on a ceremonial, deliberative, or forensic occasion with attention to rhetorical art. Distinct from casual speech by its deliberate preparation, elevated style, and consciousness of rhetorical purpose.
Example: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863); Pericles’ Funeral Oration (431 BCE); Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (1852).
Famous Work: Cicero’s collected orations (Pro Milone, Philippicae, In Catilinam) are the supreme Latin examples; they were the primary models of rhetorical education for over 1,500 years.
Source: Wikipedia – Oration
Oratory
(Latin: oratoria — “the art of speaking”) The art and practice of formal public speaking — the practical application of rhetorical principles in live performance. Distinguished from rhetoric (the theoretical discipline) by its emphasis on delivery, presence, and real-time persuasion.
Example: Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Winston Churchill, and Barack Obama are all celebrated as masters of oratory — each combining argument, style, and delivery into distinctive public voices.
Famous Work: Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (c. 95 CE) is the most comprehensive ancient treatise on the formation of the complete orator; Michael Osborn and Suzanne Osborn’s Public Speaking textbooks transmit the tradition to contemporary audiences.
Source: Wikipedia – Oratory
Outis (Nobody / Anonymity Trope)
(Greek: Οὖτις — “Nobody,” Odysseus’s pseudonym to the Cyclops) The rhetorical and narrative use of anonymous or pseudonymous identity — speaking as “nobody” or an unnamed figure to gain strategic advantages of deniability, universality, or protection. A recurring trope in satirical, political, and subversive rhetoric.
Example: The Federalist Papers were published anonymously as “Publius”; Jonathan Swift published A Modest Proposal anonymously; whistleblowers who speak as unnamed sources deploy the Outis trope.
Famous Work: Homer’s Odyssey Book IX — Odysseus’s “My name is Nobody” trick on Polyphemus is the archetype; the tradition of anonymous political pamphlet rhetoric runs from the English Civil War through the American Revolution.
Source: Wikipedia – Odysseus
Oxymoron
(see primary entry above)
— End of M–O —
Compiled for scholarly and educational reference. Sources include Silva Rhetoricae (BYU), LitCharts, Wikipedia, and primary classical texts.
P
Parable
(Greek: παραβολή — “comparison, placing beside”) A short narrative that illustrates a moral or spiritual principle through a concrete, accessible story — distinguished from allegory by its brevity and from fable by its human characters and realistic (if stylized) setting.
Example: The Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Sower and the Seed — all teach moral principles through story rather than direct instruction.
Famous Work: Jesus’s parables in the Synoptic Gospels are the most widely known in Western culture; Kafka’s parable-like prose fictions (“Before the Law,” “In the Penal Colony”) are their 20th-century literary heirs.
Source: Wikipedia – Parable
Paradox
(Greek: παράδοξον — “contrary to expectation”) A statement that appears self-contradictory or absurd but upon reflection reveals a deeper truth — a figure that uses apparent logical impossibility to illuminate reality.
Example: “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” / “I must be cruel only to be kind.” — Hamlet / “The child is father of the man.” — Wordsworth
Famous Work: John Donne’s Holy Sonnets (c. 1609) are built on theological paradox — “Death, thou shalt die” — as is much of metaphysical poetry; Chesterton’s Orthodoxy (1908) elevates paradox to a philosophical method.
Source: LitCharts – Paradox
Paralipsis (Praeteritio / Apophasis)
(Greek: παράλειψις — “passing over”) The rhetorical strategy of drawing attention to something by pretending to ignore or omit it — a figure that makes a point emphatically while maintaining the pretense of not making it.
Example: “I won’t even bring up the fact that he was convicted of perjury — that’s not what this election is about.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Verrem and Second Philippic use paralipsis as a forensic weapon; Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar — “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” — is its greatest dramatic deployment.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Paralipsis
Parallelism
(Greek: παραλληλισμός — “beside one another”) The use of identical or equivalent syntactic structures in successive clauses, sentences, or lines — creating rhythm, balance, and emphasis through structural repetition. One of the most pervasive rhetorical and poetic devices across all languages and traditions.
Example: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets.” — Churchill
Famous Work: The Hebrew Bible’s poetic books (Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah) are built on parallelism as their primary structural principle; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address achieves its power largely through sustained parallelism.
Source: LitCharts – Parallelism
Paraprosdokian
(Greek: παρά + προσδοκία — “against expectation”) A figure in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the listener to reinterpret the first part — the rhetorical engine of the punchline.
Example: “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” — Groucho Marx / “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.”
Famous Work: Groucho Marx is the supreme modern practitioner; Oscar Wilde deploys paraprosdokian throughout his plays and essays: “I can resist everything except temptation.”
Source: Wikipedia – Paraprosdokian
Parataxis
(Greek: παράταξις — “placing side by side”) The juxtaposition of clauses or phrases without coordinating or subordinating conjunctions — placing elements in sequence without explicitly marking their logical relationship. Creates a flat, urgent, or cinematic effect. The opposite of hypotaxis (subordinate structure).
Example: “He came. He saw. He conquered.” / “I opened the door. The room was empty. A window was broken. Glass on the floor.”
Famous Work: Hemingway’s style is the defining modern example of paratactic prose — The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) strip away subordination to create stark immediacy. Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici is the classical exemplar.
Source: Wikipedia – Parataxis
Parody
(Greek: παρῳδία — “beside song, burlesque”) A work that imitates the style, form, or content of another work or genre in an exaggerated way for comic, critical, or satirical effect — mimicking the original closely enough to be recognized while distorting it enough to be funny or pointed.
Example: Weird Al Yankovic’s song parodies; Don Quixote‘s parody of chivalric romance; Scary Movie‘s parody of horror film conventions.
Famous Work: Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605/1615) is the greatest parody in world literature — simultaneously a parody of chivalric romance and a profound exploration of fiction, reality, and idealism.
Source: LitCharts – Parody
Paronomasia (Pun)
(Greek: παρονομασία — “a slight name change”) A play on words that exploits multiple meanings of a term or the similar sounds of different terms — the pun. Can range from comic wordplay to profound ambiguity in serious literary and rhetorical contexts.
Example: “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” / “To be or not to be — that is the question.” (with be carrying existential, grammatical, and theatrical weight simultaneously)
Famous Work: Shakespeare is the greatest punster in English literature — virtually every play contains elaborate paronomasia; the gravediggers’ scene in Hamlet turns on sustained wordplay about “lying” and “graves.”
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Paronomasia
Pathos
(Greek: πάθος — “suffering, experience, emotion”) One of Aristotle’s three primary modes of persuasion — the appeal to the emotions of the audience. Effective pathos does not merely trigger feeling; it produces the right emotion at the right moment in a way that reinforces rather than distorts the argument.
Example: A charity advertisement showing a child’s suffering face; a prosecutor who reads a victim impact statement before sentencing; a political speech that invokes the deaths of soldiers.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric Book II (chapters 2–11) provides the most systematic classical analysis of individual emotions; MLK Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” (1963) is the 20th century’s most celebrated deployment of sustained pathos.
Source: Wikipedia – Pathos
Periphrase (Periphrasis)
(Greek: περίφρασις — “speaking around”) The use of more words than necessary to express an idea — a roundabout expression that avoids directness, either for elegance, euphemism, tact, or stylistic variety. Also called circumlocution.
Example: “The better half” (= wife/spouse) / “The land of the free and the home of the brave” (= America) / “Passed to a better place” (= died)
Famous Work: Homer’s epic epithets function as periphrases; Milton’s Paradise Lost is famous for its elaborate periphrastic style — the sun becomes “the great luminary / Aloft.”
Source: Wikipedia – Periphrasis
Periodic Sentence
(Greek: περίοδος — “a going around, a complete circuit”) A complex sentence in which the main clause is withheld until the very end — suspending the reader’s or listener’s understanding until all the qualifications, conditions, and subordinate elements have been presented. Creates tension, anticipation, and a satisfying sense of resolution.
Example: “If, in the smoldering ruins of what was once our city, surrounded by the evidence of our enemies’ savagery, bereft of allies, stripped of resources, and facing an opposition of seemingly unlimited power — if even then we do not surrender, then we shall have earned the right to call ourselves free.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s Latin prose is the supreme model of the periodic sentence; Henry James carried the form to its most elaborate extreme in The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904).
Source: Wikipedia – Periodic Sentence
Peroratio (Peroration)
(Latin: “a finishing off by speaking”) The concluding section of a classical oration — designed to summarize the argument (recapitulatio), amplify the emotional stakes (amplificatio), and leave the audience with a powerful final impression. The rhetorical equivalent of a musical coda.
Example: The closing minutes of a closing argument in a murder trial — summarizing key evidence, appealing to the jury’s sense of justice, and painting a vivid final image of what is at stake.
Famous Work: Cicero’s perorations in Pro Milone and Pro Archia are studied as models; Churchill’s wartime speeches consistently close with soaring, memorable perorations.
Source: Wikipedia – Peroration
Personification (Prosopopoeia)
(Latin: persona + facere — “to make a person”; Greek: προσωποποιία) The attribution of human qualities, actions, emotions, or characteristics to an abstract concept, inanimate object, or non-human entity.
Example: “Justice is blind.” / “The wind whispered through the trees.” / “Death, be not proud.” — Donne / “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” — abstract ideals given quasi-human standing.
Famous Work: Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy (524 CE) features Lady Philosophy as the supreme classical personification; Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590) builds entire allegories from personified virtues and vices.
Source: LitCharts – Personification
Pleonasm
(Greek: πλεονασμός — “excess”) The use of more words than are strictly necessary to convey a meaning — redundancy that is either an error (tautology) or a deliberate rhetorical strategy for emphasis and clarity.
Example: “I saw it with my own eyes.” (eyes are always one’s own) / “Free gift.” / “Past history.” / “Advance planning.”
Famous Work: Pleonasm is cataloged as a vice to avoid in classical style guides (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria), but is also recognized as a legitimate emphasis device in oral performance and vernacular speech.
Source: Wikipedia – Pleonasm
Ploce
(Greek: πλοκή — “weaving, twining”) The repetition of a word with a new or more emphatic meaning — using the same word twice but loading the second instance with additional force, irony, or depth.
Example: “The king is dead; long live the king.” / “When I say friend, I mean friend — not acquaintance, not colleague, but someone who would die for you.”
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Words, words, words” — each repetition of “words” accumulates ironic contempt. The King James Bible uses ploce for sacred intensification throughout.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Ploce
Polyptoton
(Greek: πολύπτωτον — “many cases”) The repetition of a word or root in different grammatical forms (different cases, tenses, parts of speech) within the same sentence or passage.
Example: “With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.” — Shakespeare / “The strong man is strongest alone.” / “We live as we dream — alone.” — Conrad
Famous Work: Shakespeare deploys polyptoton throughout his works for emphasis and wordplay; Cicero uses it in Latin to exploit the full range of case inflection.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Polyptoton
Polysyndeton
(Greek: πολυσύνδετον — “many bound together”) The use of multiple coordinating conjunctions in close succession — the opposite of asyndeton. Creates a sense of accumulation, weight, and epic breadth.
Example: “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house.” — Matthew 7:25
Famous Work: The King James Bible is the supreme English source of polysyndeton; Hemingway uses it selectively against his characteristic parataxis to signal emotional overwhelm.
Source: LitCharts – Polysyndeton
Pragmatics
(Greek: πραγματικός — “practical”) The branch of linguistics and rhetorical theory concerned with how context shapes meaning — how the same words mean different things in different situations, and how speakers use language to accomplish social actions beyond literal statement.
Example: “Can you pass the salt?” is literally a question about ability but pragmatically a request; “Nice weather we’re having” is pragmatically a social ritual, not a meteorological report.
Famous Work: J.L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words (1962) and John Searle’s Speech Acts (1969) are the foundational texts; H.P. Grice’s “Logic and Conversation” (1975) adds the theory of implicature.
Source: Wikipedia – Pragmatics
Procatalepsis (Prolepsis, Rhetorical)
(Greek: προκατάληψις — “anticipation, preoccupation”) The rhetorical strategy of anticipating and answering an opponent’s objection before it is raised — preemptively occupying the ground of counterargument and defusing it on one’s own terms.
Example: “Now, some of you may be wondering whether this plan is affordable. I will show you that not only is it affordable — it will save money in the long run.”
Famous Work: Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address (1860) is structured almost entirely as procatalepsis — Lincoln systematically anticipates and demolishes every Southern argument before it can be deployed against him.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Procatalepsis
Progymnasmata
(Greek: προγυμνάσματα — “preliminary exercises”) The classical sequence of rhetorical training exercises used in ancient Greek and Roman education — a graduated curriculum of composition exercises including fable, narrative, anecdote, maxim, refutation, confirmation, commonplace, encomium, invective, comparison, impersonation, description, thesis, and legislation.
Example: A student progresses from retelling a fable in their own words, to narrating a historical event, to composing a formal encomium, to writing a deliberative speech on a contested thesis.
Famous Work: The Progymnasmata of Aelius Theon, Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus (c. 1st–5th centuries CE) are the surviving manuals; Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee’s Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students revives the tradition for modern classrooms.
Source: Wikipedia – Progymnasmata
Pronuntiatio / Actio (Delivery)
(Latin: “pronunciation / action”) The fifth of the five classical canons of rhetoric — the art of delivering a speech through voice (volume, pace, pitch, rhythm, tone) and body (gesture, facial expression, posture, movement). Cicero called it “the dominant power in oratory.”
Example: The same words delivered in a flat monotone vs. with varied pitch, strategic pauses, and physical presence will persuade entirely different audiences with entirely different degrees of success.
Famous Work: Cicero’s De Oratore Book III and Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria Books XI–XII are the primary classical sources; Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) transmits the tradition into modern self-help.
Source: Wikipedia – Actio (Rhetoric)
Prosopopoeia
(Greek: πρόσωπον + ποιεῖν — “to make a face/person”) A figure in which an absent, dead, or imaginary person is represented as speaking or acting — giving voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. A broader category than personification, encompassing dramatic impersonation and ventriloquism of all kinds.
Example: A eulogist imagining what the deceased would say; a defense attorney speaking in the voice of a victim to humanize their case; Cicero speaking as if Rome herself addresses Catiline.
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Catilinam I contains the most celebrated classical prosopopoeia — he imagines the voice of the Roman Republic (patria) speaking directly to Catiline in a devastating apostrophe.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Prosopopoeia
Proverb
(Latin: proverbium — “common saying”) A short, traditional, and widely recognized expression of a general truth or piece of folk wisdom — typically anonymous, culturally embedded, and highly compressed. Distinguished from the maxim by its popular, vernacular character.
Example: “A stitch in time saves nine.” / “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” / “The early bird catches the worm.”
Famous Work: Erasmus’s Adagia (1500–1536) collected over 4,000 Greek and Latin proverbs, making it one of the most influential books of the Renaissance; the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible is the foundational text of the genre.
Source: Wikipedia – Proverb
Pseudepigraph
(Greek: ψευδεπίγραφος — “falsely inscribed”) A work attributed to an author who did not actually write it — either ancient texts whose authorship is disputed, or deliberate rhetorical forgeries written in another’s voice to exploit their authority.
Example: Several Pauline epistles in the New Testament are considered pseudepigraphical by most scholars; the Donation of Constantine (a medieval forgery) is the most consequential political pseudepigraph in history.
Famous Work: Lorenzo Valla’s Discourse on the Forgery of the Alleged Donation of Constantine (1440) is the landmark work of Renaissance philological rhetoric — using linguistic analysis to expose a forgery that had shaped European politics for centuries.
Source: Wikipedia – Pseudepigrapha
Q
Quaestio
(Latin: “question, inquiry”) In classical rhetoric, the quaestio is the central question at issue in a discourse — the disputed point that the entire argument is organized to address. Identifying the quaestio is the first step of classical invention (inventio).
Example: In a murder trial, the quaestio might be: “Did the defendant act with premeditation?” Everything — evidence, argument, testimony — is organized to answer this question.
Famous Work: Cicero’s De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium develop the theory of stasis (the point at issue) around the concept of the quaestio; Quintilian refines it in Institutio Oratoria.
Source: Wikipedia – Stasis (Rhetoric)
Quaestio Infinita / Quaestio Finita
(Latin: “unlimited / limited question”) The classical distinction between a thesis (general, philosophical question without specific persons or circumstances) and a hypothesis (specific question involving particular people, times, and places). All specific arguments are ultimately grounded in general principles.
Example: Quaestio infinita: “Should a person always tell the truth?” / Quaestio finita: “Should Brutus have told Caesar about the conspiracy?”
Famous Work: Cicero’s Topics and De Oratore develop this distinction; it shapes the entire classical curriculum of rhetorical training through the progymnasmata.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Quintilian’s Ideal Orator
(Latin: vir bonus dicendi peritus — “a good man skilled in speaking”) Quintilian’s definition of the complete orator — a person of moral excellence (vir bonus) who also commands the full technical range of rhetorical skill (dicendi peritus). The definition insists that rhetoric and ethics are inseparable.
Example: A lawyer who wins cases through technically brilliant arguments but routinely defends the guilty without moral reflection would fail Quintilian’s test — skill without virtue is not true oratory.
Famous Work: Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (c. 95 CE) — the 12-volume masterwork of Roman rhetorical education — is built around this definition and remains the most comprehensive ancient treatment of the full rhetorical curriculum.
Source: Wikipedia – Quintilian
Quotation (as Rhetorical Device)
(Latin: quotare — “to designate by number”) The use of another’s words — cited directly — to support, illustrate, or lend authority to one’s own argument. A form of testimony (testimonium) or appeal to authority in rhetorical invention.
Example: A lawyer citing precedent; a politician invoking a founding father; a preacher quoting scripture; a scientist citing a peer-reviewed study.
Famous Work: Montaigne’s Essays (1580–1588) incorporate quotation as a structural principle — his essays are woven with Latin quotations that both support and complicate his arguments, creating a dialogic relationship with the classical tradition.
Source: Wikipedia – Quotation
R
Rebuttal (Refutatio)
(Latin: refutatio — “a driving back, refutation”) The section of a classical oration — and the rhetorical act — in which the speaker addresses, weakens, or destroys the opposing arguments. One of the six parts of the classical oration (exordium, narratio, partitio, confirmatio, refutatio, peroratio).
Example: In a debate, after presenting your own argument, you systematically identify your opponent’s three strongest points and demonstrate why each fails — either logically, empirically, or through reframing.
Famous Work: Cicero’s courtroom orations are masterclasses in refutatio; Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address (1860) and Reply to Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates are landmark American examples.
Source: Wikipedia – Refutation
Redundancy (Rhetorical)
(Latin: redundantia — “overflow, excess”) The repetition of information already communicated — either a stylistic flaw (tautology) or a deliberate emphasis strategy. In communication theory, redundancy reduces the probability of message loss in noisy channels.
Example: Redundancy as flaw: “the end result,” “past history,” “ATM machine.” Redundancy as strategy: repeating key points in a speech’s introduction, body, and conclusion to ensure retention.
Famous Work: Claude Shannon’s A Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948) formalizes redundancy as a structural feature of communication systems; classical rhetoric addresses it under pleonasm and tautology.
Source: Wikipedia – Redundancy (Linguistics)
Register
(Modern: from linguistics) The variety of language used in a particular social situation or for a particular purpose — determined by the relationship between speaker and audience, the formality of the occasion, and the subject matter. Rhetorical competence includes the ability to read and match register.
Example: A surgeon speaks in clinical register to colleagues, in reassuring register to patients, and in casual register to family — all about the same procedure. Misreading register is a rhetorical failure.
Famous Work: M.A.K. Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics develops the theory of register through field, tenor, and mode; Bakhtin’s Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (1986) offers a complementary dialogic theory.
Source: Wikipedia – Register (Sociolinguistics)
Repetition
(Latin: repetitio — “a doing again”) The general category encompassing all figures that repeat sounds, words, phrases, structures, or ideas — including anaphora, epistrophe, epizeuxis, diacope, conduplicatio, polyptoton, and many others. Repetition is the single most pervasive rhetorical device across all cultures and periods.
Example: “I have a dream… I have a dream… I have a dream…” — MLK Jr. / “Never, never, never give up.” — Churchill
Famous Work: Every major oratorical tradition treats repetition as fundamental; Gertrude Stein’s “A rose is a rose is a rose” explores its philosophical and aesthetic limits.
Source: LitCharts – Repetition
Rhetoric
(Greek: ῥητορική — “the art of the rhetor/speaker”) The art of using language effectively and persuasively — the systematic study and practice of communication in all its dimensions. Aristotle defined it as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” Encompasses invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery across all contexts from the political platform to the personal email.
Example: Every deliberate communicative choice — the words a politician selects, the structure of an advertisement, the tone of a performance review, the design of a website — is a rhetorical act.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric (c. 350 BCE) is the foundational text; the tradition continues through Cicero, Quintilian, Augustine, Erasmus, Campbell, Blair, and into contemporary theorists including Kenneth Burke, Chaïm Perelman, and Wayne Booth.
Source: Wikipedia – Rhetoric
Rhetorical Question (Erotesis)
(Greek: ἐρώτησις — “questioning”) A question posed for rhetorical effect — not to elicit an answer but to make a point, to dramatize an argument, or to engage the audience’s implicit agreement. The expected answer is assumed and the question’s force lies in its self-evidence.
Example: “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” — Marlowe / “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” — Shakespeare / “Are you not entertained?” — Gladiator
Famous Work: Cicero’s In Catilinam opens with a cascade of rhetorical questions: “How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?” — one of the most celebrated series of erotesis in classical oratory.
Source: LitCharts – Rhetorical Question
Rhetorical Situation
(Modern: Lloyd Bitzer, 1968) The context that calls a rhetorical discourse into being — comprising exigence (the problem or need that demands a response), audience (those capable of being persuaded to act), and constraints (factors that limit or enable rhetorical choices). One of the most influential concepts in contemporary rhetorical theory.
Example: The assassination of a president (exigence) demands a new leader address the nation (audience) through whatever formats are available and appropriate (constraints of the moment).
Famous Work: Lloyd Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation” (1968) in Philosophy and Rhetoric is the foundational essay; Richard Vatz’s response “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation” (1973) inaugurated a productive theoretical debate that continues today.
Source: Wikipedia – Rhetorical Situation
Rhetorical Triangle
(Modern: derived from Aristotle’s three appeals) A pedagogical model representing the three elements of any communicative act — speaker/writer (ethos), audience/reader (pathos), and message/subject (logos) — and the dynamic relationships among them. Effective rhetoric requires attending to all three simultaneously.
Example: A memo that is logically sound (logos) but comes from a source the audience distrusts (ethos failure) or ignores the audience’s emotional state (pathos failure) will not persuade.
Famous Work: Derived from Aristotle’s Rhetoric but codified in its triangular diagrammatic form in modern composition and communication pedagogy; widely used in BCOM and English composition courses.
Source: Wikipedia – Rhetorical Triangle
Rhyme
(Old English/French: rim/rime — “number, verse”) The correspondence of sound between words or the endings of lines of verse — most commonly at the end of lines (end rhyme), but also within lines (internal rhyme), at the beginnings of words (alliteration), or in consonants alone (consonance).
Example: “I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills.” — Wordsworth (end rhyme) / “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.” — Poe (internal + end rhyme)
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s sonnets and Donne’s Songs and Sonnets are the peaks of the English rhyming tradition; Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is the summit of the heroic couplet.
Source: LitCharts – Rhyme
Rhythm (Rhetorical)
(Greek: ῥυθμός — “measured motion, flow”) The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, long and short sounds, or recurring structural units in language — creating a sense of movement, regularity, or variation that supports meaning and aids memorability.
Example: The insistent iambic rhythm of “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” / The falling, heavy rhythm of “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.”
Famous Work: Cicero’s Orator contains an extended treatment of prose rhythm (numerus) as essential to effective style; Gerard Manley Hopkins invented sprung rhythm to capture the natural rhythms of speech in Poems (1918, posth.).
Source: Wikipedia – Prosody (Linguistics)
Rogatio
(Latin: “asking, questioning”) A figure in which the speaker poses a series of questions — not for rhetorical effect alone (as in erotesis) but to examine, probe, or explore a topic through a structured inquiry. Related to the Socratic method.
Example: “What do we mean by freedom? Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? For whom? At what cost to others?”
Famous Work: Plato’s dialogues systematically deploy rogatio as the philosophical method — the Meno opens with Socrates interrogating the definition of virtue through a sustained series of probing questions.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
— End of P–R —
Compiled for scholarly and educational reference. Sources include Silva Rhetoricae (BYU), LitCharts, Wikipedia, and primary classical texts.
S
Satire
(Latin: satura — “medley, full dish”) A mode of discourse that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize human folly, vice, or institutional failure — with the implicit goal of correction or reform. Distinguished from mere comedy by its moral or political purpose.
Example: The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live‘s political sketches, Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, and Colbert’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech all deploy satire to critique power.
Famous Work: Swift’s A Modest Proposal (1729) and Gulliver’s Travels (1726) are the supreme English examples; Juvenal’s Satires (c. 100 CE) and Horace’s Satires (c. 35–30 BCE) define the classical tradition — Juvenal’s savage (saeva indignatio) vs. Horace’s gentle (ridentem dicere verum).
Source: Wikipedia – Satire
Schemes
(Greek: σχῆμα — “figure, shape, form”) One of the two major categories of rhetorical figures (alongside tropes) — figures that involve a deviation from ordinary word order, syntax, or sound patterns without changing the meaning of the words themselves. Schemes work through form; tropes work through meaning.
Example: Anaphora, epistrophe, chiasmus, parallelism, isocolon, and asyndeton are all schemes — they rearrange or repeat the structural form of language without altering what the words literally denote.
Famous Work: The Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) provides the first comprehensive Latin taxonomy of schemes; Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria Book IX refines the classification.
Source: Wikipedia – Figure of Speech
Sententia
(Latin: “opinion, judgment, saying”) A memorable, pithy statement expressing a moral truth or general observation — used to crystallize the lesson or argument of a passage. Closely related to the maxim and gnome, but specifically associated with the pointed, epigrammatic style of Latin rhetoric and drama.
Example: “Fortune favors the bold.” (Fortes fortuna iuvat — Terence) / “I think, therefore I am.” / “To err is human, to forgive divine.” — Pope
Famous Work: Seneca’s letters and essays are dense with sententiae; Renaissance humanists collected them in florilegia (anthologies of memorable sayings) for rhetorical use.
Source: Wikipedia – Sententia
Simile
(Latin: similis — “like, similar”) An explicit comparison between two unlike things using the words “like,” “as,” “than,” or “resembles” — distinguished from metaphor by making the comparison overt rather than asserting identity.
Example: “My love is like a red, red rose.” — Burns / “He fought like a lion.” / “Her voice was as cold as winter steel.”
Famous Work: Homer’s Iliad is famous for its extended “Homeric similes” — elaborate, digressive comparisons that slow the narrative to illuminate a single moment; Burns’s “A Red, Red Rose” (1794) is the lyric archetype.
Source: LitCharts – Simile
Slippery Slope
(Modern: informal fallacy) A logical fallacy that asserts, without adequate justification, that one event will inevitably lead through a chain of consequences to an extreme or undesirable outcome — treating a plausible first step as inevitably causing a catastrophic final result.
Example: “If we allow students to redo one test, soon they’ll expect to redo every assignment, then grades will become meaningless, and eventually no one will learn anything.”
Famous Work: The fallacy is cataloged in virtually every modern logic textbook; it appears prominently in political debates about gun control, drug policy, euthanasia, and social policy, where the reductio ad absurdum of a policy position is presented as its inevitable consequence.
Source: Wikipedia – Slippery Slope
Sophistry
(Greek: σοφιστεία — “the practice of a sophist”) In its pejorative sense, the use of clever but fallacious reasoning designed to deceive or mislead — rhetoric deployed in the service of winning rather than truth. Named for the ancient Greek Sophists, though the term as insult was largely Plato’s invention.
Example: A political operative who crafts technically true but deeply misleading statistics to support a predetermined conclusion is engaging in sophistry.
Famous Work: Plato’s dialogues — particularly Gorgias, Sophist, and Protagoras — construct the negative portrait of the sophist that has dominated Western thought; recent scholarship (e.g., Jarratt’s Rereading the Sophists, 1991) has rehabilitated the Sophists as serious rhetorical theorists.
Source: Wikipedia – Sophistry
Speech Act Theory
(Modern: J.L. Austin and John Searle) The theory that language does not merely describe reality but performs actions — that utterances can be locutionary (the literal statement), illocutionary (the social act performed: promising, warning, commanding, declaring), and perlocutionary (the effect produced in the audience). Transforms how we understand the relationship between language and action.
Example: “I now pronounce you husband and wife” is not a description — it performs the marriage. “I promise to pay you back” creates a social obligation. “I warn you: this is your last chance” performs a threat.
Famous Work: J.L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words (1962) and John Searle’s Speech Acts (1969) are the foundational texts; the theory has transformed rhetoric, linguistics, philosophy, and literary theory.
Source: Wikipedia – Speech Act
Stasis Theory (Stasis / Status)
(Greek: στάσις — “a standing, position”) The classical system for identifying the precise point at issue in any argument — the stasis — so that the appropriate arguments, evidence, and framing can be brought to bear. The four classical stases are: conjectural (did it happen?), definitional (what is it?), qualitative (how serious is it?), and translative (is this the right venue/process?).
Example: In a murder trial: Conjectural — “Did the defendant do it?” Definitional — “Was it murder or manslaughter?” Qualitative — “Was it justified self-defense?” Translative — “Should this be tried in federal or state court?”
Famous Work: Hermagoras of Temnos (c. 150 BCE) developed the theory; Cicero’s De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium transmit it; it remains a powerful tool for legal argumentation and modern policy debate analysis.
Source: Wikipedia – Stasis (Rhetoric)
Stereotyping (Rhetorical)
(Greek: στερεός + τύπος — “solid impression”) The rhetorical use of oversimplified, fixed generalizations about groups of people — reducing complex individuals to a single characteristic and deploying that reduction as if it were an argument. A form of hasty generalization applied to social categories.
Example: “All politicians are corrupt.” / “Millennials are lazy and entitled.” / “Women are too emotional to lead.”
Famous Work: Walter Lippmann coined the modern term in Public Opinion (1922), analyzing how stereotypes shape political perception; Stuart Hall’s Representation (1997) analyzes stereotyping as a mechanism of cultural power.
Source: Wikipedia – Stereotype
Straw Man
(Modern: informal fallacy) A fallacy in which a speaker misrepresents or exaggerates an opponent’s argument — constructing a weaker, distorted version that is easier to attack — and then defeats that distortion rather than the actual position.
Example: Opponent argues for modest gun regulations; response attacks them as “wanting to confiscate every gun in America and repeal the Second Amendment.”
Famous Work: The term appears in modern logic textbooks as a standard informal fallacy; it is ubiquitous in political rhetoric and was analyzed by Aristotle in Sophistici Elenchi (c. 350 BCE) under the category of arguments that ignore the actual thesis (ignoratio elenchi).
Source: Wikipedia – Straw Man
Stream of Consciousness
(Modern: William James, 1890; literary technique) A narrative and rhetorical mode that attempts to represent the continuous, associative, non-linear flow of a character’s thoughts, perceptions, and feelings — mimicking the actual texture of mental experience rather than imposing logical or grammatical order.
Example: “…yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes…” — Joyce, Ulysses
Famous Work: James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939) are the supreme literary deployments; Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and The Waves (1931) develop a more lyrical variant; William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1929) uses it for psychological characterization.
Source: Wikipedia – Stream of Consciousness
Style (Elocutio)
(Latin: stilus — “writing instrument; manner of writing”) The totality of choices a writer or speaker makes in language — diction, syntax, figurative language, rhythm, tone, and register — that distinguish their voice and shape the audience’s experience. Classical rhetoric identified three levels of style: plain (genus humile), middle (genus medium), and grand (genus grande).
Example: Hemingway’s plain style: short sentences, concrete nouns, minimal adjectives. Faulkner’s grand style: long, recursive sentences, dense imagery, elevated diction. Each is appropriate to different rhetorical purposes.
Famous Work: Cicero’s Orator (46 BCE) is the supreme classical treatment of style; Buffon’s maxim “The style is the man himself” (Le style c’est l’homme même, 1753) captures the Romantic inheritance; Richard Lanham’s A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (1968) remains the essential modern reference.
Source: Wikipedia – Style (Rhetoric)
Subtext
(Modern: theatrical and narrative theory) The unstated meaning, motivation, or implication beneath the surface of a text or speech — what is communicated between the lines, through what is omitted, avoided, or encoded rather than explicitly stated.
Example: In a tense family dinner scene, a character who says “Pass the salt” may be communicating contempt, resentment, or fear — the subtext underlies and complicates the innocuous surface statement.
Famous Work: Harold Pinter’s plays (The Birthday Party, 1958; Betrayal, 1978) are the supreme theatrical explorations of subtext; Chekhov’s drama pioneered the technique in The Cherry Orchard (1904) and Three Sisters (1901).
Source: Wikipedia – Subtext
Syllepsis (Zeugma)
(Greek: σύλληψις — “a taking together”) A figure in which a single word governs or modifies two or more other words, but with different meanings or grammatical relationships for each — creating a compressed, often witty or surprising effect. Related to zeugma, though some rhetoricians distinguish them.
Example: “She lost her purse and her composure.” / “He took his hat and his leave.” / “You can leave in a taxi or in a huff.” — Groucho Marx
Famous Work: Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1712): “Or stain her honour, or her new brocade” — the compression of a moral and a material concern into a single grammatical structure is brilliant syllepsis deployed as satire.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Syllepsis
Syllogism
(Greek: συλλογισμός — “a reckoning together”) A form of deductive reasoning consisting of two premises and a conclusion — the foundational structure of formal logic. The rhetorical version, with one premise omitted, is the enthymeme.
Example: “All mammals are warm-blooded. Whales are mammals. Therefore, whales are warm-blooded.” (Valid syllogism) / “All metals conduct electricity. Wood does not conduct electricity. Therefore, wood is not a metal.” (Valid) / “All dogs are animals. All cats are animals. Therefore, all dogs are cats.” (Invalid — undistributed middle term)
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (c. 350 BCE) is the definitive text; the syllogism remained the backbone of European logical education from the medieval trivium through the 19th century.
Source: Wikipedia – Syllogism
Symbol
(Greek: σύμβολον — “token, sign”) An object, image, action, or word that represents something beyond its literal meaning — carrying accumulated cultural, emotional, or conceptual significance through convention or usage.
Example: The American flag symbolizes the nation, its values, and its history. A dove symbolizes peace. The green light in The Great Gatsby symbolizes Gatsby’s unattainable dream and the broader American aspiration.
Famous Work: Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789–94) is built on a dense symbolic system; Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) is the most obsessively symbolic American novel — the white whale has generated more interpretive controversy than almost any symbol in literature.
Source: LitCharts – Symbol
Symploce
(Greek: συμπλοκή — “interweaving”) The combination of anaphora (repetition at the beginning) and epistrophe (repetition at the end) in the same passage — creating a tightly woven, doubly-anchored pattern of repetition.
Example: “When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it.” — Bill Clinton
Famous Work: Cicero uses symploce in his most heightened forensic and deliberative moments; the figure appears in the King James Bible and in the oratorical tradition flowing from it through Lincoln and King.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Symploce
Synecdoche
(Greek: συνεκδοχή — “taking together, simultaneous understanding”) A figure in which a part is used to represent the whole, or the whole to represent a part — a specific type of metonymy based on the part-whole relationship.
Example: “All hands on deck” (hands = sailors) / “The crown” (= the monarchy) / “Give us this day our daily bread” (bread = all food, all sustenance) / “a fleet of fifty sail” (sails = ships)
Famous Work: Synecdoche is pervasive in Homer, the Bible, and Shakespeare; Roman Jakobson and Kenneth Burke both identify it as one of the four master tropes (with metaphor, metonymy, and irony) in A Grammar of Motives (1945).
Source: LitCharts – Synecdoche
Synesthesia (Rhetorical)
(Greek: συναίσθησις — “joint perception”) The description of one sensory experience in terms of another — using language that crosses sensory modalities to create vivid, surprising perceptual effects.
Example: “The smell of that music still lingers.” / “A loud tie.” / “A sharp taste.” / “The golden notes of the trumpet filled the room.”
Famous Work: Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” blends sound, taste, and touch throughout; Rimbaud’s “Vowels” (1871) famously assigns colors to vowel sounds — the poem is a manifesto of synesthetic rhetoric.
Source: Wikipedia – Synesthesia (Rhetoric)
Syntax (Rhetorical)
(Greek: σύνταξις — “arrangement, putting in order”) The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences — and, rhetorically, the strategic deployment of sentence structure to create emphasis, rhythm, clarity, or complexity. Syntactic choices are among the most powerful determinants of rhetorical effect.
Example: “We shall fight” (active, declarative) vs. “Fighting will be done” (passive, distancing) vs. “Shall we fight?” (interrogative, uncertain) — the same content produces entirely different rhetorical effects through syntactic choice.
Famous Work: Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (1918/1959) is the most widely used practical guide to syntactic clarity; Richard Ohmann’s “Generative Grammars and the Concept of Literary Style” (1964) is a landmark analysis of syntax as style.
Source: Wikipedia – Syntax
T
Tautology
(Greek: ταυτολογία — “saying the same thing”) The needless repetition of the same idea in different words — a rhetorical vice when accidental, but also a logical structure in which a statement is necessarily true by virtue of its form alone (tautology in formal logic).
Example: Rhetorical vice: “The widow woman was alone by herself without any company.” Logical tautology: “Either it will rain or it won’t.” (necessarily true regardless of content)
Famous Work: Aristotle identifies tautology as a vice of style in Rhetoric Book III; Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) analyzes logical tautologies as formal truths that say nothing about the world.
Source: Wikipedia – Tautology (Rhetoric)
Tenor and Vehicle
(Modern: I.A. Richards, 1936) I.A. Richards’s terms for the two parts of a metaphor: the tenor is the subject being described (what the metaphor is about), and the vehicle is the image or concept used to describe it (the figurative term). Their interaction produces meaning.
Example: In “Juliet is the sun,” Juliet is the tenor and the sun is the vehicle — and the meaning emerges from the qualities of the sun (warmth, radiance, life-giving centrality) that are projected onto Juliet.
Famous Work: I.A. Richards introduces the terminology in The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) — still one of the most elegant theoretical treatments of metaphor in English.
Source: Wikipedia – Tenor and Vehicle
Thesis
(Greek: θέσις — “a placing, proposition”) In rhetorical and argumentative writing, the central claim or proposition that a discourse sets out to support — the main point the entire argument is organized to demonstrate. Also, in classical rhetoric, the quaestio infinita — a general philosophical question debated without reference to specific persons.
Example: “Social media has fundamentally degraded the quality of public political discourse in democratic societies.” — a thesis that requires definition, evidence, analysis, and acknowledgment of counterarguments.
Famous Work: Every major work of argumentation from Aristotle’s Rhetoric to contemporary academic writing is organized around the thesis principle; the academic essay form, as codified in composition pedagogy from the Renaissance onward, makes the thesis its structural center.
Source: Wikipedia – Thesis
Tmesis
(Greek: τμῆσις — “a cutting”) The separation of the parts of a compound word or phrase by the insertion of one or more other words — a figure of extreme emphasis or colloquial intensity.
Example: “Abso-bloody-lutely!” / “Fan-freaking-tastic!” / “What-so-ever” (archaic tmesis of “whatsoever”)
Famous Work: Homer uses tmesis as a feature of early Greek; Shakespeare employs it: “This is not Romeo, he’s some other where” / Modern vernacular speech has made expletive infixation (the profanity variant) its most recognizable form.
Source: Wikipedia – Tmesis
Tone
(Greek: τόνος — “tension, pitch”) The speaker’s or writer’s attitude toward the subject, the audience, or the situation — communicated through diction, syntax, figurative language, and rhythm. Tone is the emotional coloring of a discourse and shapes how the audience receives every argument.
Example: Ironic tone: says one thing, means another. Elegiac tone: mournful, reflective. Hortatory tone: urgent, commanding. Sardonic tone: grimly mocking. The same facts can be presented in radically different tones to produce radically different effects.
Famous Work: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) is one of the great studies in tonal complexity — the narrative voice simultaneously celebrates and gently mocks its characters; Swift’s A Modest Proposal sustains an elaborately ironic tone that is the source of its devastating effect.
Source: LitCharts – Tone
Topoi (Topics / Commonplaces)
(Greek: τόποι — “places”; singular: topos) In Aristotelian rhetoric, the topoi are the general patterns of argument — the “places” where arguments can be found for any subject. Common topics (koinoi topoi) apply across all subjects (e.g., more/less, possible/impossible, past/future fact); special topics (idiai topoi) are specific to each of the three rhetorical genres.
Example: The topos of “more and less”: “If even a great nation cannot achieve this, how can we expect a small one to?” / The topos of comparison: “This policy worked in Denmark; it will work here.”
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric Book II and his separate work Topics (c. 350 BCE) are the foundational texts; Cicero’s Topics (44 BCE) adapts the system for Latin oratory; the tradition shapes Western argumentative education through the Renaissance.
Source: Wikipedia – Topoi (Rhetoric)
Transferred Epithet
(See: Hypallage) A modifier grammatically attached to one noun but logically describing another — creating a poetic displacement of quality. See full entry under Hypallage.
Source: Wikipedia – Transferred Epithet
Tricolon
(Greek: τρίκωλον — “three members”) A series of three parallel elements — words, phrases, or clauses — of similar length and structure. The tricolon is one of the most naturally satisfying rhetorical structures in any language, creating a sense of completeness and balance.
Example: “Veni, vidi, vici.” — Caesar / “Blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” — Churchill (actually a tetracolon, but the principle applies) / “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” — Jefferson
Famous Work: Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici is the most famous tricolon in history; Lincoln’s “of the people, by the people, for the people” is its American heir; the rhetorical power of the number three is analyzed in every major classical handbook.
Source: Wikipedia – Tricolon
Tropes
(Greek: τρόπος — “a turn, a change of direction”) One of the two major categories of rhetorical figures (alongside schemes) — figures that involve a change in the meaning of a word or phrase, turning its significance away from its literal sense. Tropes work through meaning; schemes work through form.
Example: Metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony, hyperbole, litotes, and personification are all tropes — they alter what words mean, not just how they are arranged.
Famous Work: The Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) provides an early taxonomy; Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria Book VIII is the most thorough classical treatment; Kenneth Burke’s A Grammar of Motives (1945) identifies metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony as the four master tropes.
Source: Wikipedia – Trope (Rhetoric)
Tu Quoque
(Latin: “you also, you too”) A logical fallacy in which a speaker deflects criticism by pointing out that the critic is guilty of the same fault — “what about you?” reasoning that attempts to neutralize an accusation through counter-accusation rather than addressing the argument.
Example: “You say I shouldn’t drive drunk, but I’ve seen you do it!” / “You accuse our country of human rights abuses? What about your country’s record?”
Famous Work: Aristotle catalogs the tu quoque pattern in Sophistici Elenchi; it appears constantly in political debate — notably in the “whataboutism” deployed in Cold War rhetoric, recently revived in geopolitical argumentation.
Source: Wikipedia – Tu Quoque
U
Understatement (Meiosis / Litotes)
(Latin: meiosis — “diminution”; Greek: λιτότης — “simplicity”) The deliberate representation of something as smaller, less important, or less severe than it actually is — for ironic emphasis, comic effect, or to suggest that more is felt or meant than is said. See also Litotes and Meiosis for specific subtypes.
Example: “It’s a bit chilly” (said in a blizzard) / “The Battle of Stalingrad was something of a setback for the German forces.” / “I have a few concerns about this plan” (when one’s concerns are catastrophic).
Famous Work: British literary and conversational culture has developed understatement into a national rhetorical style; Hemingway’s prose deploys it as an aesthetic principle; the tradition runs from the Old English Beowulf through Austen to Monty Python.
Source: LitCharts – Understatement
Unities (Dramatic)
(Greek/Latin: from Aristotle’s Poetics + Renaissance interpretation) The classical principles — formalized by Renaissance critics from Aristotle’s Poetics — governing dramatic composition: unity of action (a single, unified plot), unity of time (action occurring within a single day), and unity of place (a single setting). Aristotle only explicitly required unity of action; the other two were added by later interpreters.
Example: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex observes all three unities; Shakespeare’s plays generally violate the unities of time and place, which made them controversial to neoclassical critics.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Poetics (c. 335 BCE) is the source; the doctrine was formalized by Italian Renaissance critics such as Castelvetro (Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizzata, 1570); Racine observed the unities strictly; Dr. Johnson famously defended Shakespeare’s violations in his Preface to Shakespeare (1765).
Source: Wikipedia – Classical Unities
Unreliable Narrator
(Modern: Wayne Booth, 1961) A narrative voice whose credibility is compromised — through self-delusion, limited knowledge, dishonesty, bias, or mental instability — requiring the reader to read against or beyond the narrator’s account to construct what is “actually” happening. A key concept in narrative rhetoric.
Example: Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day (1989) — a butler whose meticulous self-justifications gradually reveal a life of willful self-deception; Humbert Humbert in Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) — whose elegant prose is an act of calculated self-exculpation.
Famous Work: Wayne Booth coined the term in The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) — the foundational text of narrative rhetoric; Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) and Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) are the canonical literary examples.
Source: Wikipedia – Unreliable Narrator
Utopia (Rhetorical Genre)
(Greek: οὐ + τόπος — “no place”; also: εὖ + τόπος — “good place”) A genre of rhetorical and literary discourse that projects an idealized, perfected social order — used as a deliberative device to critique existing society by contrast, to articulate values, and to argue for reform by making alternatives imaginable.
Example: A think tank’s policy paper describing an ideal educational system uses utopian rhetoric to argue implicitly for present reform; a politician’s vision speech describes a future America that embodies the nation’s highest ideals.
Famous Work: Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) names and establishes the genre; Plato’s Republic (c. 380 BCE) is its classical ancestor; the tradition runs through Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627), Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888), and Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974).
Source: Wikipedia – Utopia
— End of S–U —
Compiled for scholarly and educational reference. Sources include Silva Rhetoricae (BYU), LitCharts, Wikipedia, and primary classical texts.
V
Verisimilitude
(Latin: verisimilitudo — “likeness to truth”) The quality of appearing true, real, or probable — the rhetorical and literary effect of convincing an audience that what is described or argued could plausibly have happened or be the case. Not truth itself, but the appearance of truth.
Example: A historical novel that accurately reconstructs period speech, dress, and social custom achieves verisimilitude; a political scenario that is internally consistent and plausible achieves verisimilitude even if hypothetical.
Famous Work: Aristotle distinguishes between what has happened (history) and what could plausibly happen (poetry/rhetoric) in Poetics (c. 335 BCE) — the probable impossible is preferable to the improbable possible. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) deploys meticulous realistic detail to achieve unprecedented novelistic verisimilitude.
Source: Wikipedia – Verisimilitude
Vernacular Rhetoric
(Latin: vernaculus — “native, domestic”) Rhetorical practice conducted in the native or common language of a people — as opposed to the learned languages of power (Latin, Greek, Sanskrit). Also: the scholarly study of rhetorical traditions that develop outside classical Greco-Roman frameworks — including African American, Indigenous, feminist, working-class, and other non-canonical rhetorical traditions.
Example: The African American preaching tradition, with its distinctive call-and-response structures and antiphonal rhythms; the corrido tradition of Mexican border ballads as political rhetoric; the blues as a form of vernacular protest rhetoric.
Famous Work: Geneva Smitherman’s Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America (1977) and Word from the Mother (2006) are foundational; Keith Gilyard’s work extends vernacular rhetoric into composition studies; Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia (c. 1302) is the first major defense of vernacular literary language over Latin.
Source: Wikipedia – Vernacular
Vilification
(Latin: vilificare — “to make cheap, to disparage”) The rhetorical act of making someone appear vile, contemptible, or morally worthless — a sustained attack on character that goes beyond invective (which attacks specific actions) to undermine the fundamental humanity or dignity of the target.
Example: Wartime propaganda that represents enemy populations as subhuman; political rhetoric that describes immigrants as “vermin” or “an infestation.”
Famous Work: Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) analyzes vilification as a prerequisite for genocide; Victor Klemperer’s The Language of the Third Reich (LTI, 1947) documents how systematic vilification was built into Nazi rhetoric word by word.
Source: Wikipedia – Vilification
Virtu (Virtus Dicendi)
(Latin: virtutes dicendi — “virtues of speaking”) The classical rhetorical virtues of style — the qualities that define excellent discourse. Typically enumerated as: latinitas/hellenismos (correctness), perspicuitas (clarity), ornatus (ornamentation/elegance), and aptum/decorum (appropriateness). Together they constitute the standard against which classical stylistic achievement was measured.
Example: A speech that uses grammatically correct language (latinitas), is clearly organized and expressed (perspicuitas), employs well-chosen figures (ornatus), and perfectly matches its tone to its audience and occasion (aptum) displays all four virtues.
Famous Work: The Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 90 BCE) and Cicero’s De Oratore codify the virtues; Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria Book VIII provides the most thorough treatment.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Visio (Phantasia / Vision)
(Latin: “sight, vision”; Greek: φαντασία — “imagination, appearance”) A rhetorical figure in which the speaker describes a vivid mental image or scene — presenting to the mind’s eye something absent, future, or imaginary as if directly perceived. Related to evidentia and enargeia but emphasizing the speaker’s own visionary experience.
Example: “I can see it now — the day when every child in this nation wakes up to a school that is funded, staffed, and ready to receive them.”
Famous Work: MLK Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech (1963) is the supreme modern deployment of visio — the repeated “I have a dream” formula introduces a series of vivid imagined futures presented as if already seen.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Voice (Rhetorical)
(Latin: vox — “voice, sound”) The distinctive presence, personality, and perspective that a writer or speaker projects through their language choices — the cumulative effect of diction, syntax, tone, rhythm, and stance that makes a discourse feel as if it comes from a particular, recognizable individual. Also: in grammar, the distinction between active (subject acts) and passive (subject is acted upon) voice, each carrying different rhetorical implications.
Example: Hemingway’s sparse, declarative voice; Faulkner’s labyrinthine, visionary voice; Frederick Douglass’s formally precise yet passionately urgent voice — each is immediately recognizable and rhetorically distinctive.
Famous Work: Walker Gibson’s Tough, Sweet, and Stuffy (1966) analyzes three major American prose voices; Peter Elbow’s Writing with Power (1981) is the foundational composition text on developing authentic rhetorical voice.
Source: Wikipedia – Voice (Grammar)
Volta
(Italian: “turn”) The rhetorical and structural “turn” in a sonnet — typically at the end of the octave (in the Petrarchan form) or before the final couplet (in the Shakespearean form) — where the poem pivots in argument, tone, or perspective. By extension, any significant rhetorical pivot or reversal in a discourse.
Example: In Keats’s “When I Have Fears” — the volta arrives at line 12, where the speaker turns from abstract meditations on death and fame to a sudden, devastating personal recognition of isolation and insignificance.
Famous Work: Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609) and Petrarch’s Canzoniere (c. 1327–1368) are the defining texts of the sonnet volta tradition; the concept has been extended by rhetorical scholars to describe any argumentative reversal or pivot in persuasive discourse.
Source: Wikipedia – Volta (Literature)
W
Warrant (Toulmin Model)
(Modern: Stephen Toulmin, 1958) In Toulmin’s model of argumentation, the warrant is the reasoning principle or general rule that licenses the inferential step from grounds (evidence) to claim (conclusion) — the often unstated assumption that makes the argument work. Warrants may themselves require backing (support).
Example: Claim: “Socrates is mortal.” Grounds: “Socrates is a man.” Warrant: “All men are mortal.” (The warrant is the general principle that bridges evidence and conclusion — in this case, explicit, but often assumed.)
Famous Work: Stephen Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument (1958) introduced the model as a practical alternative to formal syllogistic logic for analyzing real-world arguments; it is now ubiquitous in rhetoric and composition pedagogy.
Source: Wikipedia – Toulmin’s Argument Model
Whataboutism
(Modern: Cold War coinage, popularized 21st century) A variant of the tu quoque fallacy in which criticism of one party is deflected by pointing to perceived misdeeds of another — “what about X?” — without addressing the original accusation. Particularly prevalent in geopolitical rhetoric and social media argumentation.
Example: “You accuse Russia of interfering in elections? What about American interference in other countries’ elections?” — The American record may be relevant context, but the response does not address whether the Russian accusation is true.
Famous Work: The term became widely used during Soviet Cold War rhetoric; it has been extensively analyzed in media and political discourse since 2016. Edward Lucas’s journalism and Peter Pomerantsev’s Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible (2014) document its modern political deployment.
Source: Wikipedia – Whataboutism
Wit
(Old English: witan — “to know”) The intellectual dimension of humor — the ability to perceive incongruity, make unexpected connections, and express them in language that is simultaneously surprising and exactly right. Distinguished from mere comedy by its precision and from irony by its celebratory rather than corrective intent.
Example: “I am not young enough to know everything.” — Oscar Wilde / “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx
Famous Work: Oscar Wilde’s plays — The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), An Ideal Husband (1895) — are the supreme exhibitions of sustained wit in English drama; Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets (1779–1781) defines and models intellectual wit in criticism.
Source: Wikipedia – Wit
Word Choice (Diction)
(Greek: λέξις — “word, diction”; Latin: delectus verborum — “selection of words”) The selection of individual words as a primary rhetorical act — encompassing connotation, denotation, register, precision, concreteness vs. abstraction, and the cultural associations words carry. Aristotle called clarity the supreme virtue of diction; effectiveness requires matching word choice to purpose, audience, and occasion.
Example: Choosing “passed away” vs. “died” vs. “perished” vs. “was killed” vs. “lost their life” — each carries distinct connotative weight and positions the speaker differently in relation to the event and the audience.
Famous Work: Aristotle’s Rhetoric Book III discusses diction at length; Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” (1946) is the most influential modern guide to word choice; Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (1918/1959) makes “prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague” a governing principle.
Source: Wikipedia – Diction
X
Xenophanes’ Critique (Ad Hominem of the Gods)
(Greek: Ξενοφάνης — pre-Socratic philosopher, c. 570–475 BCE) Xenophanes of Colophon’s rhetorical observation that humans project their own attributes onto the divine — that Ethiopians make their gods dark-skinned, that Thracians make theirs blue-eyed and red-haired, and that if horses could draw, their gods would look like horses. One of the earliest recorded critiques of anthropomorphism and a foundational move in rhetorical and philosophical self-awareness.
Example: “If cattle and horses and lions had hands and could draw… horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle.” — Xenophanes, Fragment 15
Famous Work: Xenophanes’ fragments, preserved in later sources, represent the first systematic rhetorical and philosophical critique of theological language; Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity (1841) extends the argument in modernity.
Source: Wikipedia – Xenophanes
Xenophon’s Rhetoric
(Greek: Ξενοφῶν — c. 430–354 BCE) The practical rhetorical tradition exemplified by Xenophon — emphasizing clarity, directness, and moral exemplarity in historical and instructional prose. Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Cyropaedia, and Anabasis model a rhetoric of leadership, instruction, and ethical action that contrasts with the more ornate tradition of Isocrates and Cicero.
Example: The Anabasis (c. 370 BCE) — the account of the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries’ march from Persia — models deliberative rhetoric in action: soldiers debating, leaders persuading, decisions being made under pressure.
Famous Work: Xenophon’s Memorabilia (Memoirs of Socrates, c. 371 BCE); the Cyropaedia as a rhetoric of ideal leadership; Cicero praised Xenophon’s style as the standard for plain, elegant Latin prose.
Source: Wikipedia – Xenophon
Y
Yield (Rhetorical Concession / Concessio)
(Latin: concessio — “a granting, conceding”) The rhetorical act of granting a point to an opponent — acknowledging the validity or partial truth of a counterargument before demonstrating why it does not defeat one’s overall position. Strategic concession builds credibility and disarms opposition.
Example: “I grant that the policy has real costs — no one disputes that. The question is whether those costs are worth the benefits, and on that question, the evidence is overwhelming.”
Famous Work: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) performs a masterful rhetorical concession — acknowledging the South’s grievances and shared moral culpability for slavery before pivoting to a vision of reconciliation. Cicero uses concessio strategically throughout his forensic orations.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – Concessio
Yoked Clauses (Synchysis / Interlocked Word Order)
(Greek: σύγχυσις — “confusion, mingling”) A figure in which words belonging to two parallel phrases are interlocked or woven together in an ABAB pattern — creating a complex, intertwined structure that reflects thematic entanglement or complexity.
Example: “Not as men love artemis but as artemis loves men” — an interlocked ABBA arrangement. / Latin poetry exploits the inflected language’s freedom to interlace noun-adjective pairs across a line for visual and semantic effect.
Famous Work: Virgil’s Georgics and Aeneid are celebrated for their interlocked Latin word order, which creates a visual enactment of thematic entanglement; Richard Dyer Bennet and other scholars of classical metrics analyze this as a defining feature of Latin poetic rhetoric.
Source: Silva Rhetoricae – BYU
Z
Zeugma
(Greek: ζεῦγμα — “a yoking, a bond”) A figure in which a single word — typically a verb or adjective — governs or modifies two or more other words, often in different senses or with a surprising semantic shift between the uses. The umbrella term that encompasses syllepsis and related yoking figures.
Example: “She opened the door and her heart to the stranger.” / “He lost his wallet and his temper.” / “Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave.” — Dickens
Famous Work: Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1712): “Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball” — the zeugma compresses moral and material loss into a single grammatical structure, enacting the poem’s satire on misplaced values. Dickens deploys zeugma for comic and pathetic effect throughout his novels.
Source: LitCharts – Zeugma
Zetetica (Zetetic Method)
(Greek: ζητητική — “the art of inquiry, seeking”) A method of proceeding by inquiry and question rather than assertion — suspending judgment and examining all sides of a question before arriving at a conclusion. Associated with the Academic Skeptics of ancient philosophy and with Socratic dialectic. Rhetorically, the zetetic stance produces discourse that models intellectual humility and open inquiry.
Example: A researcher who presents all available evidence on both sides of a contested empirical question before drawing a tentative, qualified conclusion is practicing zetetic rhetoric.
Famous Work: Cicero’s Academica (45 BCE) presents the zetetic method of the New Academy; Montaigne’s Essays (1580–1588) embody zetetic rhetoric in literary form — each essay is a sustained act of open-ended inquiry that reaches conclusions provisionally and revisably.
Source: Wikipedia – Pyrrhonism
Zoom (Rhetorical Scope / Scale Shifting)
(Modern: from cinematographic metaphor) The rhetorical movement between scales of analysis — from the vast and cosmic to the intimate and particular, or vice versa — as a strategy for generating perspective, pathos, or argumentative force. Zooming out reveals patterns and stakes; zooming in creates human connection and emotional immediacy.
Example: A climate speech that opens with the geological timescale of the planet’s history (zoom out), then narrows to the specific community facing sea-level rise (zoom in), then narrows further to one family’s flooded home (extreme close-up), before pulling back to the global policy response required.
Famous Work: Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot (1994) is the supreme modern example of rhetorical zoom — beginning with a photograph of Earth as a mote of dust in a sunbeam and using the cosmic scale to generate both humility and urgent moral responsibility; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address moves between the cosmic (“four score and seven years”) and the intimate (“these honored dead”) with extraordinary control.
Source: Wikipedia – Cosmic Perspective
— End of V–Z —
Appendix: Quick Reference Index by Category
Classical Greek & Latin Figures (Schemes)
Anadiplosis · Anaphora · Anastrophe · Antimetabole · Asyndeton · Brachylogia · Chiasmus · Conduplicatio · Diacope · Ellipsis · Epanalepsis · Epanodos · Epimone · Epiphora/Epistrophe · Epizeuxis · Gradatio · Homoioteleuton · Hyperbaton · Hysteron Proteron · Isocolon · Parallelism · Polyptoton · Polysyndeton · Symploce · Tricolon
Tropes
Allegory · Antanaclasis · Antithesis · Antonomasia · Catachresis · Conceit · Extended Metaphor · Hyperbole · Irony · Kenning · Litotes · Meiosis · Merismus · Metalepsis · Metaphor · Metonymy · Onomatopoeia · Oxymoron · Paradox · Paronomasia · Personification · Simile · Synecdoche · Synesthesia · Zeugma
Logical Fallacies
Ad Hominem · Ad Ignorantiam · Ad Misericordiam · Ad Populum · Appeal to Authority · Begging the Question · Equivocation · False Analogy · False Cause (Post Hoc) · False Dichotomy · Hasty Generalization · Non Sequitur · Slippery Slope · Sophistry · Straw Man · Tu Quoque · Whataboutism
Canons of Rhetoric
Dispositio · Elocutio · Inventio · Memoria · Pronuntiatio/Actio
Rhetorical Genres & Situations
Deliberative Rhetoric · Epideictic Rhetoric · Forensic Rhetoric · Genre · Jeremiad · Kairos · Rhetorical Situation · Rhetorical Triangle · Utopia
Classical Theory & Concepts
Aristotelian Appeals (Ethos/Pathos/Logos) · Canons of Rhetoric · Catharsis · Decorum · Dialectic · Dissoi Logoi · Enthymeme · Ethos · Logos · Mimesis · Mythos · Pathos · Progymnasmata · Quaestio · Quintilian’s Ideal Orator · Stasis Theory · Topoi
Modern Rhetorical Theory
Burke’s Identification · Framing · Genre (Rhetorical) · Grammatical Metaphor · Implicature · Intentional Fallacy · Narrative Paradigm · Pragmatics · Register · Rhetorical Situation · Speech Act Theory · Tenor and Vehicle · Toulmin Model (Grounds/Warrant/Claim) · Unreliable Narrator
Narrative & Literary Devices
Allegory · Anachronism · Anagnorisis · Bathos · Burlesque · Cataphora · Conceit · Dramatic Irony · Ekphrasis · Foreshadowing · Frame Narrative · Freytag’s Pyramid · In Medias Res · Motif · Parody · Stream of Consciousness · Subtext · Symbol · Unities (Dramatic) · Unreliable Narrator · Volta
This wiki represents one of the most comprehensive single-document collections of rhetorical terms in English, spanning classical antiquity through contemporary communication theory. Entries cover Greek and Latin figures, schemes and tropes, logical fallacies, canons of rhetoric, narrative devices, modern rhetorical theory, and cross-disciplinary concepts from linguistics, philosophy, semiotics, and literary criticism.
Total entries: 260+ Total coverage: A–Z
Compiled for scholarly and educational reference. Sources: Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu) · LitCharts (litcharts.com) · Wikipedia · Primary classical texts © Educational use encouraged with attribution.
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