topos

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek τόπος (tópos, “place, region, space; subject of a speech”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate take as short for a Greek phrase meaning "common place".^[7][8][9] The OED explains that the use of the Greek word for a "place" in which a speaker could look for arguments goes back to Isocrates, and that Aristotle used it for general considerations open to anyone, more fully κοινοὶ τόποι (koinoì tópoi), Latin loci communes, whence English commonplace.^[2] Aristotle's treatise on such arguments was called τὰ τοπικά (tà topiká), the source of topic.^[2][3] Etymonline calls the Greek noun of uncertain origin and quotes Beekes, for whom its broad range of meanings makes an etymology difficult.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stock rhetorical theme or topic: 1936 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[4] 1935–40 in Dictionary.com.^[9] The OED's first quotation is from Spitzer's Linguistics and Literary History (1948),^[2] and Etymonline also dates the word to 1948.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The English word was taken from Greek in the 20th century as a term of literary study, for a traditional motif or theme, a rhetorical commonplace or a conventional formula.^[2][5][10] It renewed in English the sense that Greek rhetoric had given tópos, which had reached English much earlier in topic, first the name of Aristotle's work and then, by 1720, any subject of speech or writing.^[2][3] The Greek plural topoi is used as its plural.^[4][5][10]

Timeline

• 1936 – a stock theme or formula in rhetoric or literature.^[4] The OED's first quotation is from 1948.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A traditional theme or motif in literature; a rhetorical commonplace or conventional formula: The journey to the underworld is an old topos of epic poetry.^{[4][2][10][5]}

Related words

• topic
• topical
• commonplace
• topography
• utopia

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins