Glossary of Rhetoric Terms - A

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• Absurdity. The exaggeration of a point beyond belief.

• Accumulation. The emphasis or summary of previously made points or inferences by excessive praise or accusation.

• Acutezza. Wit or wordplay used in rhetoric.

• Adjunction. When a verb is placed at the beginning or the end of a sentence instead of in the middle. For example (from Rhetorica ad Herennium), "At the beginning, as follows: 'Fades physical beauty with disease or age.' At the end, as follows: 'Either with disease or age physical beauty fades.'"

• Aesthetics. The examination of symbolic expression to determine its rhetorical possibilities.

• Aetiologia. Giving a cause or a reason.

• Affectus. A term used by the Italian Humanists of the Renaissance to describe the source of emotions or passions in the human mind.

• Agenda. That which a persuader successfully makes salient and then spins

• Alloisis. The breaking down of a subject into its alternatives.

• Ambigua. An ambiguous statement used in making puns.

• Amplificatio. An all-purpose term for all the ways an argument can be expanded and enhanced.

• 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.

• Analogy. The use of a similar or parallel case or example to reason or argue a point.

• Anaphora. From the Greek ἀναφέρω, "I repeat". 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.

• Animorum motus. The emotions.

• Antanaclasis. From Greek ̩ ̩ἀντανάκλασις, a figure of speech involving a pun, consisting of the repeated use of the same word, each time with different meanings.

• Anthimeria. Substitution of one part of speech for another (such as a noun used as a verb). It is traditionally called antimeria.

• Antimetabole. Repetition of two words or short phrases, but in reversed order to establish a contrast. It is a specialised form of chiasmus.

• Antinome. (pronounced an-ta-nome) Two ideas about the same topic that can be worked out to a logical conclusion, but the conclusions contradict each other.

• Antiptosis. The substitution of one case for another.

• Antistrophe. In rhetoric, repeating the last word in successive phrases. For example (from Rhetorica ad Herennium), "'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.

• Aphaeresis. The omission of a syllable from the beginning of a word.

• Apocope. The omission of the last letter or syllable of a word.

• Apokoinu construction A blend of two clauses through a lexical word which has two syntactical functions, one in each of the blended clauses.

• Apophasis / Apophesis. Pretending to deny something as a means of implicitly affirming it. Mentioning something by saying that you won't mention it.

• Aporia. An attempt to discredit an opposing viewpoint by casting doubt on it.

• 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. From Greek ἀποστροφή, a figure of speech consisting of a sudden turn in a text towards an exclamatory address to an imaginary person or a thing.

• Appeals. Rhetorical devices used to enhance the plausibility of one's argument; Aristotle's appeals included ethos, logos, and pathos.

• 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.
• Argumentum ad hominem. Using what you know about your opponent's character as a basis for your argument.

• Arrangement. See dispositio.

• Ars arengandi. Teaching of forensic speaking during the Medieval rhetorical era.

• Ars dictaminis. The art of writing letters, introduced and taught during the Medieval rhetorical era.

• Ars poetria. Medieval teaching of grammar and style through analysis of poetry.

• Ars praedicandi. The art of preaching based on rhetorical ideas and introduced during the Medieval rhetorical era during an increasing intersection between rhetoric and religion.

• Artistic proofs. Rhetorically-produced methods for persuasion. For Aristotle, three possibilities would be ethos, pathos, and logos.

• Asyndeton. The deliberate omission of conjunctions that would normally be used.

• Audience. Real, imagined, invoked, or ignored, this is a concept that seems to be 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 to obtain a climactic effect.

• Axioms. The point where scientific reasoning starts. Principles that are not questioned.