Rhetoric Flashcards
Accumulatio
Emphasis or summary of previously made points or inferences by excessive praise or accusation.
Acutezza
Wit or wordplay in rhetoric
Aetiologia
Giving a cause or a reason
Alloisis
The breaking down of a subject into its alternatives
Ambigua
An ambiguous statement used in making puns
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
Anacoluthon
An abrupt change of syntax within a sentence. (What I want is — like anybody cares.)
Anadiplosis
Repeating the last word of one clause or phrase to begin the next.
Anastrophe
Inversion of the natural word order
Antanaclasis
a figure of speech involving a pun, consisting of the repeated use of the same word, each time with different meanings. [After the Dauphin sends King Henvry V a cask of tennis balls, Henry responds, “…for many a thousand widows / Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands / Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down . . .” (Mock means “to taunt” but also “to cheat out of”)]
Anthimeria
Substitution of one part of speech for another (such as a noun used as a verb). “Let’s scissor expenses” ; “Book the flight”
Antimetabole
Repetition of two words or short phrases, but in reversed order to establish a contrast. It is a specialized form of chiasmus. “I know what I like, and I like what I know” ; “Dance to live, not live to dance” ; “Ask not what your country can do for you . . .”
Antimone
Two ideas about the same topic that can be worked out to a logical conclusion, but the conclusions contradict each other.
Antonomasia
The substitution of an epithet for a proper name. Aristotle is “the Philosopher.” Napoleon is “the little corporal.”
