Log in or Sign up
  1. enthymeme love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Logic A syllogism in which one of the premises or the conclusion is not stated explicitly.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In Aristotle's logic, an inference from likelihoods and signs, which with Aristotle is the same as a rhetorical syllogism.
  2. n. A syllogism one of the premises of which is unexpressed. This meaning of the word, which is the current one, arose from the preceding through a change in the conception of a rhetorical argument with the Roman writers (Quintilian, etc).

Wiktionary

  1. n. A by and large statement, a maxim, a less-than-100% argument.
  2. n. logic A syllogism with a required but unstated assumption.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Logic) An argument consisting of only two propositions, an antecedent and consequent deduced from it; a syllogism with one premise omitted; as, We are dependent; therefore we should be humble. Here the major proposition is suppressed. The complete syllogism would be, Dependent creatures should be humble; we are dependent creatures; therefore we should be humble.

Etymologies

  1. From Ancient Greek ἐνθύμημα (enthýmēma, "thought, consideration"), from ἐν (en, "within, with") + θυμός (thymos, "soul, life"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin enthȳmēma, from Greek enthūmēma, a rhetorical argument, from enthūmeisthai, to consider : en-, in; see en-2 + thūmos, mind. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “I call the enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism, and the example a rhetorical induction.”

    Aristotle's Rhetoric - Selected Moments

  • “An enthymeme is an argument that’s built on major premise, minor premise, and conclusion, but the speaker/writer leaves out one of the premises because it’s assumed that everyone understands and agrees with that premise.”

    Some other things I’ve been thinking about « Dyepot, Teapot

  • “The enthymeme is a sort of syllogism, and the consideration of syllogisms of all kinds, without distinction, is the business of dialectic, either of dialectic as a whole or of one of its branches.”

    Aristotle's Rhetoric - Selected Moments

  • “The example is an induction, the enthymeme is a syllogism, and the apparent enthymeme is an apparent syllogism.”

    Aristotle's Rhetoric - Selected Moments

  • “Every kind of syllogism is composed of propositions, and the enthymeme is a particular kind of syllogism composed of the aforesaid propositions.”

    Rhetoric

  • “Aristotle calls the enthymeme the “body of persuasion,” implying that everything else is only an addition or accident to the core of the persuasive process.”

    Aristotle's Rhetoric

  • “Depreciation are one kind of enthymeme, viz. the kind used to show that a thing is great or small; just as there are other kinds used to show that a thing is good or bad, just or unjust, and anything else of the sort.”

    Rhetoric

  • “The enthymeme here might do well to exclude the conclusion and let the audience infer it if the goal of the argument were to convince the audience that Susan speaks eloquently.”

    Rhetorical Figures in Sound: Enthymeme

  • “Statements may be strategically excluded in an enthymeme because they are too obvious or because revealing them might damage the force of the argument.”

    Rhetorical Figures in Sound: Enthymeme

  • “The syllogism above would be rendered an enthymeme simply by maintaining that "Michael is mortal because he's human" (leaving out the major premise).”

    Rhetorical Figures in Sound: Enthymeme

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

same context (13)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. bonus
  2. buffering
  1. sawbuck
  2. effectivity
  1. underscore
  2. turn-on
  1. refin
  2. mosh
  1. bloomer
  2. sum
  1. blood-thirstiness
  2. hotchpotch
  1. lenience

reverse dictionary (4)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. enthymema
  1. enthymematic
  1. enthymematical
  1. antecedent

tags (3)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. philosophy
  1. rhetoric
  1. vcccvcvcv

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘enthymeme’.

More lists containing ‘enthymeme’

Comments

No comments yet...

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

Tweets

Looking for tweets for enthymeme.

‘enthymeme’ has been looked up 4454 times, loved by 4 people, added to 26 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 19.