Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A traditional theme or motif; a literary convention.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
literary theme ormotif ; arhetorical convention or formula. - noun mathematics A certain mathematical
structure found incategory theory .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a traditional theme or motif or literary convention
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Aristotle says: “we must find the location (topos) from which to attack,” where the word ˜topos™ is obviously used to mean a starting point for attacking the theses of the opponents.
Aristotle's Rhetoric Rapp, Christof 2002
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The notion of topos is due for a revival, especially if we are to consider seriously the recuperation of sentimental poetry and the many women poets who do not invest in the masculinised rhetorics of anti-rhetoric proffered in the Lyrical Ballads model of Romantic-period literary history.
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In addition, help was offered by a search-and-rescue group called "topos" -- (moles) -- organized by youths who dug through collapsed buildings after Mexico City's 1985 earthquake.
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Very roughly, a topos is a category possessing a logical structure sufficiently rich to develop most of
Category Theory Marquis, Jean-Pierre 2007
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The inscription found on a portico base was identified as a topos inscription by Professor Dennis Feissel in Paris -- "pro teketai [iu] lianou," or "the place reserved for [Ju] lian."
Interactive Dig Sagalassos - N-S Colonnaded Street Report 4 2003
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Now a topos is a motif which takes the form of a literary commonplace or rhetorical set-piece: e.g., the comparison between nature and a book or between the world and the theater.
MOTIF HARRY LEVIN 1968
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7 This topos has been a subject of well known investigations from Ernst R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Princeton 1967), 319-326, to Jacques Derrida, Of
Plotnitsky, Notes 2001
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When English lawyer Sir Thomas More--a devout Roman Catholic--coined the word "utopia" to describe his imaginary island nation in the early 16th century, it was a play on the Greek eu-topos, meaning "good place" and ou-topos, meaning "no place".
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When English lawyer Sir Thomas More--a devout Roman Catholic--coined the word "utopia" to describe his imaginary island nation in the early 16th century, it was a play on the Greek eu-topos, meaning "good place" and ou-topos, meaning "no place".
Forbes Faces Of The Week: Feb. 27-Mar. 3, 2006Faces Of The Week: Feb. 27-Mar. 3, 2006 Forbes.com staff 2006
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These are "topos" ( "place") inscriptions followed by a name in the possessive case, which gave official authorization to a particular salesman to use this spot.
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