Glossary of rhetorical terms

A

• Accumulatio – the emphasis or summary of previously made points or inferences by excessive praise or accusation.
• Actio – canon #5 in Cicero's list of rhetorical canons; traditionally linked to oral rhetoric, referring to how a speech is given.
• Ad hominem – rebutting an argument by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making it rather than the substance of the argument itself.
• Adianoeta – a phrase carrying two meanings: an obvious meaning and a second, more subtle and ingenious one.
• Alliteration – the use of a series of two or more words beginning with the same letter.
• Amphiboly – a sentence that may be interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous structure.
• Amplification – the act and the means of extending thoughts or statements to increase rhetorical effect, to add importance, or to make the most of a thought or circumstance.
• Anacoenosis – a speaker asks his or her audience or opponents for their opinion or answer to the point in question.
• Anadiplosis – repeating the last word of one clause or phrase to begin the next.
• Analogy – the use of a similar or parallel case or example to reason or argue a point.
• Anaphora – a succession of sentences beginning with the same word or group of words.
• Anastrophe – inversion of the natural word order.
• Anecdote – a brief narrative describing an interesting or amusing event.
• Antanaclasis – a figure of speech involving a pun, consisting of the repeated use of the same word, each time with different meanings.
• Anticlimax – a bathetic collapse from an elevated subject to a mundane or vulgar one.
• Antimetabole – repetition of two words or short phrases, but in reversed order to establish a contrast. It is a specialized form of [|chiasmus].
• Antinomy – two ideas about the same topic that can be worked out to a logical conclusion, but the conclusions contradict each other.
• Antiptosis – type of enallage in which one grammatical case is substituted for another.
• Antistrophe – repeating the last word in successive phrases, for example, "Since the time when from our state concord disappeared, liberty disappeared, good faith disappeared, friendship disappeared, the common weal disappeared." Also see: epiphora.
• Antithesis – the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, or grammatical structures; the second stage of the dialectic process.
• Antonomasia – the substitution of an epithet for a proper name.
• Apophasis – pretending to deny something as a means of implicitly affirming it; as paralipsis, mentioning something by saying that you will not mention it; the opposite of occupatio.
• Aporia – a declaration of doubt, made for rhetorical purpose and often feigned.
• Aposiopesis – an abrupt stop in the middle of a sentence; used by a speaker to convey unwillingness or inability to complete a thought or statement.
• Apostrophe – a figure of speech consisting of a sudden turn in a text towards an exclamatory address to an imaginary person or a thing.
• Arete – virtue, excellence of character, qualities that would be inherent in a "natural leader", a component of ethos.
• Argument – discourse characterized by reasons advanced to support conclusions.
• Argumentum ad baculum – settling a question by appealing to force.
• Ars dictaminis – the art of writing letters, introduced and taught during the Medieval rhetorical era.
• Assonance – words that repeat the same vowel sound.
• Asyndeton – the deliberate omission of conjunctions that would normally be used.
• Audience – real, imagined, invoked, or ignored, this concept is at the very center of the intersections of composing and rhetoric.
• Aureation – the use of Latinate and polysyllabic terms to "heighten" diction.
• Auxesis – to place words or phrases in a certain order for climactic effect.
• Axioms – the point where scientific reasoning starts; principles that are not questioned.

  B

• Barbarism – use of a non-standard word, expression or pronunciation in a language, particularly one prescriptively regarded as an error in morphology.
• Bathos – an emotional appeal that inadvertently evokes laughter or ridicule.
• Belles lettres – written works considered to be of high quality because they are pleasing to the senses.
• Brevitas – concise expression.
• Burden of proof – theory of argument giving the obligation of proving a case to the asserting party.
• Buzzword – a word or phrase used to impress, or one that is fashionable.

  C

• Canon – a term often used to discuss significant literary works in a specific field, used by Cicero to outline five significant parts of the rhetorical composition process.
• Captatio benevolentiae – any literary or oral device that seeks to secure the goodwill of the recipient or hearer, as in a letter or in a discussion.
• Catachresis – the inexact use of a similar word in place of the proper one to create an unlikely metaphor; for example, "The power of man is short" or "the long wisdom in the man".
• Charisma – an attribute that allows a speaker's words to become powerful.
• Chiasmus – a figure of speech consisting of the contrasting of two structurally parallel syntactic phrases arranged "cross-wise", i.e., in such a way that the second is in reverse order from the first.
• Chreia – an anecdote involving a well-known figure.
• Circumlocution – use of many words where a few would do.
• Classicism – a revival in the interest of classical antiquity languages and texts.
• Climax – an arrangement of phrases or topics in increasing order, as with good, better, best.
• Colon – a rhetorical figure consisting of a clause that is grammatically, but not logically, complete.
• Colloquialism – a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.
• Common topics – arguments and approaches useful in rhetorical settings.
• Consubstantiality – substance commonality.
• Contingency – the contextual circumstances that do not allow an issue to be settled with complete certainty.
• Context – the circumstances surrounding an issue that should be considered during its discussion.

  D

• Deconstruction – analyzing communication artifacts by scrutinizing their meaning and related assumptions, with the goal of determining the social and systemic connotations behind their structure.
• Decorum – the appropriateness of style to subject, often divided into the grand style, the middle style, and the low style.
• Deduction – moving from an overall hypothesis to infer something specific about that hypothesis.
• Delectare – to delight; viewed by Cicero as one of the three duties of an orator.
• Dialectic – a term that has been defined differently by Aristotle and Petrus Ramus, among others; generally, it means using verbal communication to come to an agreement on a topic.
• Dispositio – the stage of planning the structure and sequence of ideas; often referred to as arrangement, the second of Cicero's five rhetorical canons.
• Dissoi logoi – contradictory arguments.
• Docere – to teach; viewed by Cicero as one of the three duties of an orator.
• Doxa – a common belief or popular opinion, usually contrasted with episteme.
• Dramatism – a theory developed by Kenneth Burke, according to which the world is a stage where all the people present are actors; the dramatistic pentad centers around five concepts: act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose.
• Dysphemism – a term with negative associations for something in reality fairly innocuous or inoffensive.

  E

• Ecphonesis – a sentence consisting of a single word or short phrase ending with an exclamation point.
• Eloquence – fluent, elegant, persuasive, and forceful speech, persuading an audience.
• Ellipse – the suppression of ancillary words to render an expression more lively or more forceful.
• Elocutio – the stage of elaborating the wording of a text, using correct grammar and diction.
• Enallage – the switching of grammatical forms for an expressive purpose.
• Enthymeme – a type of argument that is grounded in assumed commonalities between a rhetor and the audience.. In Aristotelian rhetoric, an enthymeme is known as a "rhetorical syllogism": it mirrors the form of a syllogism, but it is based on opinion rather than fact.
• Epanalepsis – a figure of speech in which the same word or phrase appears both at the beginning and at the end of a clause.
• Epideictic – ceremonial rhetoric, such as might be found in a funeral or victory speech.
• Epistemology – philosophical study directed at understanding how people gain knowledge.
• Epistrophe – a succession of clauses, phrases or sentences that all end with the same word or group of words.
• Epithet – a term used as a descriptive and qualifying substitute for the name of a person, place or thing.
• Epizeuxis – emphasizing an idea by repeating a single word.
• Eristic – communicating with the aim of winning the argument regardless of truth.
• Erotema – rhetorical question; a question is asked to which an answer is not expected.
• Ethos – a rhetorical appeal to an audience based on the speaker/writer's credibility.
• Ethopoeia – the act of putting oneself into the character of another to convey that person's feelings and thoughts more vividly.
• Eulogy – a speech or writing in praise of a person, especially one who recently died or retired.
• Euphemism – an innocuous, inoffensive or circumlocutory term or phrase for something unpleasant or obscene—e.g., in advertising for female hygiene products any liquid shown is never red, it's usually blue.
• Exemplum – the citation of an example, either truthful or fictitious.
• Exordium – the introductory portion of an oration.