How to use rhetoric in a sentence
40 example sentences · noun, adjective
Rhetoric means the art of using language, especially public speaking, as a means to persuade. Example: “He was capable of using lawyerly rhetoric, at times, to the brink of pettifoggery.”
Examples of rhetoric by meaning
nounThe art of using language, especially public speaking, as a means to persuade.
- 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.2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 53
- We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, echoing his long-standing advocacy for use of the death penalty, which was part of his tough-on-crime rhetoric during the 2024 campaign.2024 December 24, Aaron Pellish, “Trump says he will direct Justice Department to ‘vigorously pursue the death penalty’”, in CNN
More sentences with rhetoric
- He was capable of using lawyerly rhetoric, at times, to the brink of pettifoggery.From the entry pettifoggery
- You need to tone down the rhetoric.From the entry down
- The president has recently dialled down the rhetoric.From the entry dial
- I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.From the entry penetrate
- The bellicose rhetoric worked: Suddenly, Trump had changed the news cycle.2025 August 7, Jonathan Lemire, “Things Aren’t Going Donald Trump’s Way”, in The Atlantic. From the entry news cycle
- Later polemicists employ anti-Muslim rhetoric, especially allegations that Muslims themselves judaize, in similar fashion.2023 October 1, David M. Freidenreich, chapter 1, in Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy, Oakland, California…. From the entry Judaize
- Antisemitic rhetoric specifically targets Jews; anti-Jewish rhetoric instead targets all who bear purportedly Jewish characteristics, especially non-Jews.2023 October 1, David M. Freidenreich, Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy, Oakland, California: University of…. From the entry anti-Judaism
- Autistic rhetoric scholar Melanie Yergeau theorizes neuroqueer as a kind of “asocially perverse” motioning.2021, Ryan Lee Cartwright, Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 188. From the entry theorize
- A Hindu nationalist party, the BJP has long faced accusations of anti-Muslim rhetoric.2019 April 12, James Griffiths and Manveena Suri, “Outrage over BJP promise to ‘remove every single infiltrator’ from India”, in CNN. From the entry BJP
- The Arabic that the su’luks learned to speak was the high language of rhetoric and poetry.2019, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Arabs, Yale University Press, page 99. From the entry su'luk
- His unsadistic, unvengeful commitment to the telling of truth; his wariness of the rhetoric of conviction.2016, Adam Phillips, Promises, Promises: Essays on literature and psychoanalysis, London: Faber & Faber, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN. From the entry unsadistic
- There’s been a spate of stories lately about how Cruz’s rhetoric is more hifalutin than everybody else’s.2015 November 1, Hendrik Hertzberg, “That G.O.P. Debate: Two Footnotes”, in The New Yorker, archived from the original on 13 Feb 2016. From the entry highfalutin
- It reminds me of the rhetoric of chaoplexologists whom I critiqued in The End of Science.2015, John Horgan, The End Of Science Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In: The Twilight Of The Scientific Age, Basic Books, →ISBN. From the entry chaoplexologist
- But rhetoric was all we got-turn on Clinton's spigot, and he's all foam, no beer.2010 November 2, Jim Hightower, If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates: More Political Subversion from Jim…. From the entry all foam, no beer
- To rephrase in less fevered rhetoric, a regional alliance might take shape independent of the U.S.2010, Noam Chomsky, “The Iranian threat”, in Z Magazine, volume 23, number 7. From the entry fevered
- That partisan rhetoric may be heated, but it's not entirely off base.2010 June 24, Kate Pickert, “How Health Reform Will Impact Existing Plans”, in TIME, archived from the original on 25 Sep 2010. From the entry off base
- After decades of empty rhetoric, that's the down payment that we need on energy independence.2009 February 5, Barack Obama, My Door is Always Open. From the entry down payment
- Therefore, consideration should also be given to the rhetoric of ancient Jewish polemic.2006, Margaret Hannan, “The Cost of Rejecting Jesus’ Message Concerning God’s βασιλεία”, in The Nature and Demands of the Sovereign Rule…. From the entry vitriolic
- What Ahmad calls Jameson's 'rhetoric of otherness', Suleri terms his 'alteritism'.2004, Neil Lazarus, “Fredric Jameson on 'Third-World Literature': A Qualified Defence”, in Sean Homer, Douglas Kellner, Palgrave…. From the entry alteritism
- The rhetoric of anti-corruption was one of the few possible discourses of social criticism.2003, Wolf Lepenies, Entangled Histories and Negotiated Universals: Centers and Peripheries in a Changing World. From the entry anticorruption
- The so-called “elegantness” means attaching great importance to rhetoric in the creation of poetry.1999, Ming Qing Yanjiu, →ISSN, page 211. From the entry elegantness
- Bush has made public assistance—specifically welfare—a constant target of his campaign rhetoric.1992 May 25, Thomas Sancton et al., “How to Get America Off the Dole”, in Time. From the entry public assistance
- Remember the rampaging political rhetoric that accompanied ABC’s presentation of the $40 million, 14½-hour megaseries Amerika?1987 May 29 – June 4, Mark Jurkowitz, “Don’t quote me: Duking it out: cheap shots and puff pieces”, in The Boston Phoenix, volume XVI…. From the entry megaseries
- Soon papal rhetoric began to claim the Ravennans as territorial members of St.1984, Wm. M. Daly & al., The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680–825, page 190. From the entry Ravennan
- It is rather confused rhetoric to call a grafter a thief.1980, David Mark Chalmers, The Muchrake Years, Krieger Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 152. From the entry grafter
- But the language of his confessions never rises above the rhetoric of a cafe revolutionary.1978 November 12, Jose Yglesias, “Fiction Roundup”, in New York Times. From the entry café revolutionary
- He has answered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric.1904, Gilbert K[eith] Chesterton, “Enter a Lunatic”, in The Napoleon of Notting Hill, London; New York, N.Y.: John Lane, The Bodley Head…. From the entry vaunt
- Extreme rhetoric often landed like another genre of Internet content—something to be halfheartedly consumed, laughed at, scrolled past, and then forgotten.2025 December 19, Jesse Arm, “Everyone Wants to Know What Gen Z Republicans Think. We Asked Them.”, in City Journal, archived from the…. From the entry halfheartedly
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued this week to use a blustery “we will go it alone if we must” rhetoric publicly.2024 May 9, Howard LaFranchi, “Historic Israeli desire to ‘go it alone’ is tested by Gaza and Iran”, in The Christian Science Monitor. From the entry blustery
- Dr Allen said it could affect social cohesion and potentially drive harmful rhetoric around migration when Australia's population change was problematised.2024 September 19, Ahmed Yussuf, “Australia's population reaches 27 million with growth largely driven by overseas migration”, in ABC…. From the entry problematize
- And an unknowable amount of young men are following this rhetoric through sites like Reddit, 4chan, and YouTube.2024 November 20, Fortesa Latifi, “How These Men Left the Manosphere — and Why Some May Never”, in Teen Vogue. From the entry unknowable
- The four powers increasingly identify common interests, match up their rhetoric, and coordinate their military and diplomatic activities.2024 May/June, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Richard Fontaine, “The Axis of Upheaval: How America’s Adversaries Are Uniting to Overturn the…. From the entry axis of upheaval
- Resort to using old, Soviet rhetoric which remains an effective means of influencing the zombie population of vatnyks.2018 May 30, “Useful Idiots: Kremlin's scheme to legalise the occupation of Ukraine in Europe is failing”, in Embassy of Ukraine in the…. From the entry vatnyk
- What distinguishes the core of the rightwing populist electorate is its gullibility to idiocy-promoting rhetoric against climate science.2017 February 20, Paul Mason, “Climate scepticism is a far-right badge of honour – even in sweltering Australia”, in the Guardian. From the entry gullibility
- And such rhetoric—we know as surely as we know that night follows day—eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.2016, David Neiwert, Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, →ISBN. From the entry eliminationism
- Overlooking it may foster a misunderstanding of Fluddian rhetoric, embracing the false assumption that Fluddian science envisions a protoempiricist scientific method.2016, Raz Chen-Morris, Measuring Shadows: Kepler’s Optics of Invisibility. From the entry Fluddian
- And before you know it, you've exploded vicious rhetoric on some poor Bethyl shipper on Tumblr who never saw it coming.2016, Kathleen Smith, The Fangirl Life: A Guide to All the Feels and Learning How to Deal, unnumbered page. From the entry Bethyl
- If Obama’s interests run toward history, so does his rhetoric.2015 December 21, David A. Graham, quoting Barack Obama, “The Wrong Side of 'the Right Side of History'”, in The Atlantic. From the entry arc of history
Meaning of rhetoric
- noun The art of using language, especially public speaking, as a means to persuade.
- noun Meaningless language with an exaggerated style intended to impress.
- adjective Synonym of rhetorical.
Questions about rhetoric in a sentence
- How do you use rhetoric in a sentence?
- Rhetoric is used as a noun and adjective. For example: “He was capable of using lawyerly rhetoric, at times, to the brink of pettifoggery.”
- What is a short sentence with rhetoric?
- “I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.”
- What does rhetoric mean?
- Rhetoric means the art of using language, especially public speaking, as a means to persuade.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rhetoric (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use rhetoric in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/rhetoric. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
