rhetorical

1 marked by the use of impressive-sounding but mostly meaningless words and phrases you can skip over the rhetorical passages and still get the gist of the essay Synonyms bombastic, flatulent, fustian, gaseous, gassy, grandiloquent, oratorical, orotund, windy Related Words bloated, elevated, florid, flowery, grandiose, highfalutin (also hifalutin), high-flown, high-sounding, inflated, lofty, ornate, pompous, pontifical, pretentious, stilted, tumid, turgid; overdone, verbose, wordy Near Antonyms eloquent, well-spoken; bald, direct, matter-of-fact, plain, plainspoken, simple, stark, straightforward, unadorned, unaffected, unpretentious Antonyms unrhetorical

2 full of fine words and fancy expressions the new governor delivered a long rhetorical speech about our state's bright future but laid out no specific programs for ensuring it Synonyms aureate, florid, grandiloquent, highfalutin (also hifalutin), high-flown, high-sounding, magnific, ornate, purple, flowery (also rhetoric)Related Words affected, bloated, fancy-pants, grandiose, inflated, pompous, pretentious, stilted; excessive, flattering, fulsome; boastful, bombastic; elevated, eloquent, lofty; bookish, inkhorn, learnedNear Antonyms prosaic, unpoetic; bald, direct, lean, matter-of-fact, plain, plainspoken, simple, spare, stark, straightforward, unadorned; natural, unaffected, unpretentious

3 of or relating to words or language the next war that those two nations fight won't be rhetorical—it will be with bombs and bullets Synonyms lexical, linguistic (also linguistical), verbal (also rhetoric), vocabular, wordyRelated Words communicative, conversationalAntonyms nonlexical, nonlinguistic, nonverbal