phrases - Uncommon Term for an Excellent Orator?


I'm looking for an uncommon term for an excellent orator that doesn’t include adjectives such as “good” or “excellent,” or the noun “orator.” I've googled this request but haven't encountered anything compelling.



Answer



If you want something very unusual and yet historically resonant, you might try chrysostomic (that is, "golden-mouthed"). Here's the OED definition of that word:



Chrysostomic a. rare. {f. Gr χρυσοστομος golden-mouthed, an epithet applied to favourite orators which became a kind of surname of Dio and John Chrysostom.} Golden-mouthed.


[Example:] 1816 Month[ly] Rev[iew] LXXXI 245 By the majesty of his Chrysostomic eloquence.



The quotation from The Monthy Review (November 1816) runs at greater length as follows:



Dean Williams, also, with the plasticity of a Roman cardinal, after having subdued by his arguments the puritan chieftain Dr. Reynolds, stalked into the see of Lincoln, which he disdained to illustrate, but, changing his career, took up the seals which Bacon had laid down, and attracted the admiration of the House of Lords by a probity more unfaultering, by a profounder knowlege of the civil law, and by the majesty of his Chrysostomic eloquence.



Wikipedia has fairly detailed articles on both Dio Chrysostom and (Saint) John Chrysostom.


The OED also has an entry for chrysostomatical, which has essentially the same meaning as chrysostomic but (to me) doesn't sound as good.


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