rhetorically
Americanadverb
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in a way that uses language for style or effect.
These essays discuss how the term participatory has been deployed rhetorically by a range of institutions.
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not expecting an answer, either because the answer is unknowable or because it is obvious.
I am not asking the question rhetorically or snidely.
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in way that uses language in an exaggerated way.
The realities of the global marketplace are quite apparent; they don't need to be rhetorically beaten to death.
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in a way that uses specialized literary language, such as figures of speech.
Some of the entries are concise, but most of them are verbally and rhetorically elaborate.
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in a way that uses language particularly effectively.
Her testimony was rhetorically strong, but scientifically weak.
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using words, especially in the absence of action.
He fails to demonstrate the validity of his claims, but merely asserts them rhetorically.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rhetorically
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Graham was, rhetorically, almost pathetically in Trump’s thrall, heaping flattery onto a president who’d once posted Graham’s phone number online for mass harassment.
From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026
Leibovich recorded Graham asking rhetorically at a rally in Greeneville, South Carolina, about rumors he had changed.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2026
In a prefatory note, he confesses his anxiety about this practice, asking rhetorically, “you can’t just make up quotes, can you?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
“Do you know many nanoseconds it takes,” Kavanagh asked rhetorically, “to make a decision between Milwaukee, Wisc., and Sacramento, Calif.?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2026
Midwestern newspapers reprinted the blasts of Wendell Phillips in the East, and of Editor Horace Greeley, who asked rhetorically if this man Lincoln was the sole hope of the Republican Party.
From "Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
