Address & Argument

Amplificatio

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Developing a point through restatement, added detail, comparison, or increasing emphasis. Each addition expands the audience’s sense of its significance.

Cicero circling Catiline's treachery in wave after rising wave.

Don't confuse it with. Enumeratio lists; amplificatio inflates. Auxesis is its close kin, arranging terms in ascending force.

Drill its family — Address & Argument

Examples

The delay cost us time, then wages, then the homes those wages paid for.

Practice example · written for this exercise

The same loss is expanded through increasingly serious consequences.

The rest of the family

Rhetorical Question Apostrophe Invocation Aphorism Enthymeme Correctio / Epanorthosis Parrhesia Metabasis Aporia Enargeia / Vivid Specificity