noun The skill of using language persuasively, especially in speaking or writing.
- The teacher showed us how rhetoric can make a speech far more convincing.
- Ancient Greek students trained in rhetoric so they could argue well in public.
- She studied classical rhetoric to sharpen her public speaking.
noun Language that sounds impressive but is empty of real substance.
- Beyond all the fine rhetoric, the council has not fixed a single road.
- I am tired of the angry rhetoric that fills the comment section every day.
- Voters grew tired of empty campaign rhetoric with no concrete plans.
- Transport Minister Marples, meanwhile, used arrogant rhetoric and showed his personal contempt for railways when confirming in Parliament that a third of the network was to be closed even before the survey results were known.
— Howard Johnston, Was Marples the real railway wrecker? (2023)
