rhetorical flourish
Stylistic speech decoration
A rhetorical flourish is an ornamental turn of phrase or dramatic gesture in speech or writing, designed more to impress than to inform.
The term often carries a dismissive edge—calling something a flourish suggests it's decorative rather than substantive: His promise to "fight until the last breath" was rhetorical flourish, not policy.
Politicians deploy flourishes at the climax of speeches; critics use the label to deflate them.
- hyperboleRhetorical extreme exaggeration
- chiasmusInverted parallel construction
- speechwritingCrafting formal spoken remarks
- antithesisDirect opposite; contrasting juxtaposition
- metaphorImplied identity comparison
ethos · alliteration · purple prose · parallelism · simile · logos · bombast · aureate · grandiloquence · irony · anaphora · litotes · grand gesture · epistrophe · verbose · poetic license · ornamentation · silver tongue
- oratorypublic speaking, speeches, oration, orations, addresses
- literary devicesmetaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, alliteration
- rhetoricpersuasion, oratory, argumentation, debate, public speaking
- Purple Proseflorid, verbose, overwrought, ornate, flowery
- grand stylegrandeur, sublime, splendor, majestic, magnificence
- Baroque poetryconceit, conceits, ornamentation, court poetry, sacred poetry
rhetorical flourishplain speech
Unembellished verbal expression
plain language · direct speech · plainspokenness · spare prose · journalistic style
rhetorical flourishunvarnished truth
Reality stated without softening
candor · straight talk · plain truth · raw honesty · heartfelt words
rhetorical flourishbrevity
Shortness of expression
terseness · concision · economy of words · pithy remark · understatement