Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a subject of conversation or discussion: to provide a topic for discussion.
- the subject or theme of a discourse or of one of its parts.
- Rhetoric, Logic. a general field of considerations from which arguments can be drawn.
- Also called theme. Linguistics. the part of a sentence that announces the item about which the rest of the sentence communicates information, often signaled by initial position in the sentence or by a grammatical marker.Compare comment(def 7).
noun
- a subject or theme of a speech, essay, book, etc
- a subject of conversation; item of discussion
- (in rhetoric, logic, etc) a category or class of arguments or ideas which may be drawn on to furnish proofs
1630s, “argument suitable for debate,” singular form of “Topics” (1560s), the name of a work by Aristotle on logical and rhetorical generalities, from Latin Topica, from Greek Ta Topika, literally “matters concerning topoi,” from topoi “commonplaces,” neuter plural of topikos “commonplace, of a place,” from topos “place” (see topos). The meaning “matter treated in speech or writing, subject, theme” is first recorded 1720.