Erotema

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A question posed not to obtain information but to make a point emphatically, the answer being already implied
2. A figure of speech in which a question is asked purely for dramatic or persuasive effect, with no answer expected
3. An interrogative used in rhetoric to provoke thought or stress a claim, where the speaker already knows the reply

Etymology: The Greek word "erṓtēma" simply meant "a question", built from "erōtan", "to ask", and it passed into Late Latin as "erōtēma" with the same plain sense. English took it up as a learned borrowing, so the word arrived by way of scholarly rhetoric rather than everyday speech. Its doublet, "eroteme", came into English through the same channel and carries the same meaning, so the two forms are essentially one word in two spellings. The specialised sense, a question asked not to obtain information but to make a point, is what gives the word its character. Rhetoricians in antiquity treated such questions as a deliberate device, and the Greek and Latin terms preserved that technical focus. The English noun has kept this narrow meaning: a rhetorical question, asked for its effect on the listener rather than for an answer.

Synonyms: erotesis, rhetorical question