rhetor
(ˈriːtɔː(r))
Forms: 4–6 rethor, 5 rether, 5–6 -our, 6– rhetor.
[a. L. rhētor (in med.L. often rethor), a. Gr. ῥήτωρ. Cf. F. rhéteur.]
1. A teacher or professor of rhetoric; a rhetorician.
| c 1375 St. Augustin 71 in Horstm. Altengl. Leg. (1878) 62/2 Austin þe doctour..was a philosofre and a rethor. c 1386 Chaucer Sqr.'s T. 30 A Rethor excellent, That koude hise colours longynge for that Art. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems lxiii. 5 Divinouris, rethoris, and philosophouris. 1611 H. Broughton Require Agreem. 47 Aristides, the Rhetor Sophister. 1643 Hammond Serm. Wks. 1683 IV. 514 Your Hearing,..what is it but as of a Rhetor at a Desk, to commend or dislike? 1750 Warburton Julian Introd. p. xxxiii, From the teaching Rhetors they learnt the art of reasoning by similitudes and analogies. 1847 Grote Greece ii. xxxvi. IV. 454 Themistoklês had received no teaching from philosophers, sophists and rhetors, who were the instructors of well-born youth in the days of Thucydidês. 1879 Farrar St. Paul (1883) 386 The..city..was full of professors, rhetors, tutors,..grammarians. |
† b. transf. A master of eloquence or literary expression. Obs.
| ? 1409–11 Lydg. Life our Lady xxxiv. (Caxton) e vij b, And eke my master chauceris now is graue The noble rethor poete of brytayne. ? c 1450 in Lydg. Temple Glas (1891) 78 Moral gower, lydgate, Rether and poete. 1508 Dunbar Gold. Targe 253 O reuerend Chaucere, rose of rethoris all. |
2. An orator, esp. a professional one. Sometimes in depreciatory use: A rhetorical speechifier, a mere rhetorician.
| 1588 Fraunce Lawiers Log. i. v. 31 b, This were an affect of an extemporall Rhetor to salute a man by name without premeditation. 1807 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. V. 577 He must be pacing about in his rhetor's cassock, watching its turgid folds. 1821 Jefferson Autobiog. Writ. 1892 I. 140 The rhapsodies of Rhetor Burke. 1860 A. L. Windsor Ethica vii. 383 Not that Chatham was a mere sophistical rhetor. 1874 Lewes Probl. Life & Mind I. 29 Those rhetors who declaim against it. |