Word.ws English Dictionary

rhetorical

UK/ɹɪˈtɒɹ.ɪ.kəl//ɹɪˈtɔɹɪkəl/

rhetorical adjective: part of or similar to rhetoric, the use of language as a means to persuade.

Adjective

rhetorical (not comparable)

  1. Part of or similar to rhetoric, the use of language as a means to persuade.
  2. Not earnest, or presented only for the purpose of an argument.
    • Unfortunately, she has used the attack as a launch pad for a bizarre and undercooked exercise in rhetorical bothsidesism, in which she argues that American Jews should be just as worried about college students who overzealously criticize Israel as they are about the aspiring Einsatzgruppen who...2019 September 6, Jordan Weissman, “How Not to Fight Anti-Semitism”, in Slate
  3. Asked for dramatic or persuasive effect, rather than to get an answer.
    • '"Are you an idiot? Actually, don't answer that, it was rhetorical."

Noun

rhetorical (plural rhetoricals)

  1. (dated) A study or exercise in rhetoric.

rhetorical meaning in Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada and Gujarati

rhetorical in Bengali

অলঙ্কারিক

rhetorical in Malayalam

സാഹിത്യവിഷയക, അലങ്കാരശാസ്ത്രപൂർണ്ണ, അമിതവാചാടോപംകലർന്ന

rhetorical in Kannada

ವಾಗಾಡಂಬರದ, ಆಲಂಕಾರಿಕ, ಕೃತಕ ಶೈಲಿಯ

rhetorical in Gujarati

રેટરિકલ
More languagesFewer languages
rhetorical in Indonesian
retoris, retorik

Examples of rhetorical in a sentence

  • Are you nuts? Don't answer that – it's a rhetorical question.
  • Drawing the rhetorical distinction between the "people like yourselves" at the overwhelmingly white rally and "those people" protesting was, needless to say, a provocative framing of the issue.
  • The backhandedness of this procedure reflects the fact that null hypothesis tests are motivated by rhetorical considerations.

All 40 example sentences with rhetorical

Forms of rhetorical

pluralrhetoricals

Origin of rhetorical

From Middle English rethorycal, rethoricalle, rethorycall, from rethorik, rhetoric (noun) or Latin rēthoricus, rhētoricus, from Ancient Greek ῥητορικός (rhētorikós, “concerning public speaking”). By surface analysis, rhetoric + -al.

Words formed from rhetorical

Phrases with rhetorical

Questions about rhetorical

What does rhetorical mean?
Rhetorical means part of or similar to rhetoric, the use of language as a means to persuade.
What is rhetorical in Bengali?
Rhetorical in Bengali is অলঙ্কারিক. See Rhetorical meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is rhetorical?
Rhetorical can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce rhetorical?
Rhetorical is pronounced /ɹɪˈtɒɹ.ɪ.kəl/ (UK).

Words near rhetorical in the dictionary

  1. rhetography
  2. rhetological
  3. rhetology
  4. rhetor
  5. rhetoric
  6. rhetorical
  7. rhetorical device
  8. rhetorical devices
  9. rhetorical induction
  10. rhetorical mode
  11. rhetorical modes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rhetorical (page history and authors); rhetorical (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rhetorical (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rhetorical (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rhetorical (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-rhetorical.ogg, en-au-rhetorical.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rhetorical.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rhetorical. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.