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prettygoodwordexordium (ik-SAWR-dee-uhm, ig-ZAWR-dee-uhm) - n., a beginning or introductory part, especially of a speech or treatise.
Preface, introduction, preamble, prologue, prelude, or even proem (which latter is not, despite the rhyme, restricted to the start to a poem). The term is from classical rhetoric, in contrast to the final part of a speech, the peroratio, and in English comes across as a very formal if not stuffy term. Not surprisingly, it's direct from Latin (adopted in the late Middle Ages), from exōrdior, to begin/commence, from ex-, in the sense of going/setting out + ōrdior, to begin.
---L.
Preface, introduction, preamble, prologue, prelude, or even proem (which latter is not, despite the rhyme, restricted to the start to a poem). The term is from classical rhetoric, in contrast to the final part of a speech, the peroratio, and in English comes across as a very formal if not stuffy term. Not surprisingly, it's direct from Latin (adopted in the late Middle Ages), from exōrdior, to begin/commence, from ex-, in the sense of going/setting out + ōrdior, to begin.
---L.
