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1. Using language effectively to please or persuade
    
2. High-flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation
   "the rhetoric of his prose";
   - grandiosity, magniloquence, ornateness, grandiloquence
    
3. Loud and confused and empty talk
   "mere rhetoric";
   - palaver, hot air, empty words, empty talk
    
4. Study of the technique and rules for using language effectively (especially in public speaking)

Derived forms: rhetorics

Type of: bunk, expressive style, hokum, literary study, meaninglessness, nonsense, nonsensicality, style

Encyclopedia: Rhetoric