ART

AESTHETIC |esˈTHetik|(also esthetic adjective) concerned with

beauty or the appreciation of beauty: the pictures give great aesthetic pleasure.

• giving or designed to give pleasure through beauty; of pleasing appearance.

noun [ in sing. ]a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement: the Cubist aesthetic.ORIGIN late 18th cent. (in the sense ‘relating to perception by the senses’): from Greek aisthētikos, from aisthēta ‘perceptible things,’ from aisthesthai ‘perceive.’

RHETORICAL |rəˈtôrikəl adjectiveof, relating to, or concerned with the art of rhetoric: repetition is a common rhetorical device.

|• expressed in terms intended to persuade or impress: the rhetorical commitment of the government to give priority to primary education.

• (of a question) asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information.

DERIVATIVES

rhetorically |-ik(ə)lē|adverb

ORIGIN late Middle English (first used in the sense ‘eloquently expressed’):via Latin from Greek rhētorikos (from rhētor ‘rhetor’)  

THEORIES|ˈTHēərē, ˈTHi(ə)rēnoun ( pl. theories )a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained: Darwin's theory of evolution.

• a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based: a theory of education | music theory.

• an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action: my theory would be that the place has been seriously mismanaged.

• Mathematics a collection of propositions to illustrate the principles of a subject.

PHRASES

in theory used in describing what is supposed to happen or be possible, usually with the implication that it does not in fact happen: in theory, things can only get better; in practice, they may well become a lot worse.

ORIGIN late 16th cent. (denoting a mental scheme of something to be done): via late Latin ffrom Greek