exordium

Their invitation Dr. Fosdick expressed in a great exordium: The great east window of Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church has long needed proper furbishing in stained glass.

From Time Magazine Archive

I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued—

From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

The purpose of the exordium is to put the audience into a receptive and attentive frame of mind.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

I gasped, but to so strange an exordium had nothing to say.

From Shrewsbury A Romance by Stanley J. Weyman

These sermons were, as might indeed be expected, chiefly cast in a somewhat scholastic form—theme, exordium, development, example and peroration following in regular order.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William" by Various

I imagine that this sacred influence, under the name of Amphi, is often alluded to in the exordia of Poets, especially by the writers in Dithyrambic measure, when they address Apollo.

From A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. by Jacob Bryant

But in the exordia and perorations to the several books, as well as in sundry digressions, may be found matter of greater value, embodying the poet's views on the great questions of philosophy.

From The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius by Charles Thomas Cruttwell

They were seeking to catch some lyric exordia as they flew by immersed in the billows of the air.

From The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1 by Aristophanes

Matteo is valuable for the general reflections which form exordia to the eleven books that bear his name.

From Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) The Age of the Despots by John Addington Symonds

The period is proper for the exordiums of greater causes, where the matter requires solicitude, commendation, pity.

From The Training of a Public Speaker by Grenville Kleiser

And in each one of the exordiums he invokes the Muse that she may make the value of what is said greater and more divine.

From Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies by Plutarch

Some, therefore, specify two kinds of exordiums, one a beginning, the other an insinuation.

From The Training of a Public Speaker by Grenville Kleiser

I have a tale to tell," began the Secretary, "and there are preliminaries and exordiums, but first of all there is a question.

From Before the Dawn A Story of the Fall of Richmond by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler

Indeed, judged by some of her early work in the reviews, and by the little philosophic exordiums with which she opens so many of her chapters, Tasma would have made a brilliant essayist.

From Australian Writers by Desmond Byrne