ABSTRACT

Few geometrical and rhetorical terms are more closely related than the pairs hyperbola-hyperbole, ellipse-ellipsis, and circle-circumlocution (as well as parabola-parable, but which will not be discussed here). A consultation of classical Greek and Latin texts, etymological dictionaries, Greek and Latin glossaries, early manuals of rhetoric and geometry, and contemporary books of rhetoric and geometry yields, however, nothing that explicitly acknowledges the kinship of these terms; nor does such consultation reveal which set of termsthe rhetorical or the geometric-was first employed. The most likely conclusion is that the two sets of terms developed independently, leaving the question of priority and derivation moot. What is relevant to our present study, however, is the fact these tropes display conceptually what geometry displays graphically. The expression "figurative language" could not be more fitting.