rhetoric: [14] In ancient Greece, a rhétōr was a ‘public speaker’, an ‘orator’. The word went back to a prehistoric Indo-European base *wer- ‘speak, say’, which also produced English verb and word. From it was derived the adjective rhētorikós, which passed into English as a noun via Latin rhētorica and Old French rethorique. => verb, word
early 14c., from Old French rethorique, from Latin rhetorice, from Greek rhetorike techne "art of an orator," from rhetor (genitive rhetoros) "speaker, orator, teacher of rhetoric," related to rhesis "speech," rhema "word, phrase, verb," literally "that which is spoken," from PIE *wre-tor-, from root *were- (3) "to speak" (cognates: Old English word, Latin verbum, Greek eirein "to say;" see verb).
