Argument & Persuasion — C1 English Vocabulary

Using argument & persuasion words in English

Advanced argumentative vocabulary is largely about calibrating how much force you claim. Rebut, refute and repudiate look like three ways of saying disagree and are not. This page also contains a spelling trap that survives spellcheckers — tenet against tenant — and equivocate, whose meaning is narrower and less flattering than most learners assume.

What to watch out for

• Rebut, refute, repudiate

  To rebut is to argue against a claim. To refute, strictly, is to prove it false — a much stronger assertion, though journalism now uses it loosely. To repudiate is to reject something formally and publicly, often something previously associated with you: the party repudiated its former leader. The three describe increasing force and increasing formality.

• A tenet is a belief; a tenant rents a flat

  A tenet is a principle held by a group: a central tenet of the theory. A tenant occupies property. They differ by one letter, sound similar in rapid speech, and no spellchecker will catch the substitution because both are real words. Two neighbours worth fixing at the same time: a corollary is something that follows necessarily from what has just been proved, and a caveat is a warning or qualification attached to a claim.

• Equivocate is not merely to hesitate

  To equivocate is to use deliberately ambiguous language in order to avoid committing yourself — it implies evasiveness rather than uncertainty: The minister equivocated for twenty minutes. Prevaricate is close and means to speak evasively or misleadingly. Neither means simply to delay, which is what the everyday misuse suggests. Fallacious is different again: it means built on faulty reasoning, not merely untrue.

Words learners mix up

At this level the vocabulary stops describing what was said and starts judging it — whether the reasoning holds, how far somebody gave ground, and by what means they were brought round. All three judgements are made by word choice alone.

Collocations that sound natural

Argument vocabulary is unusually frozen: several of these nouns appear in one phrase and almost nowhere else, so learning the phrase is learning the word.

• caveat

  with one caveata major caveatsubject to the caveat thatcaveat emptor

  Caveat emptor — let the buyer beware — is the Latin tag it comes from. Pronounced CAV-ee-at in British English.

• crux

  the crux of the matterthe crux of the argumentthis is the crux

  Almost always singular and with the. From Latin for cross — the point where everything meets.

• credence

  lend credence togive credence togain credenceno credence whatever

  Uncountable, and it means belief given to a claim rather than the claim’s own credibility. Evidence lends it; people give it.

• gist

  get the gistthe gist of itthe general gist

  Uncountable and informal-leaning: the essential meaning without the detail. Always with the.

• nuance

  a subtle nuancea nuanced argumentlose the nuancenuances of meaning

  The adjective nuanced is high praise in academic writing — it means the argument recognises complications rather than flattening them.

• salient

  the salient pointsalient featuresthe most salient of these

  Means standing out as most important. Pertinent is its neighbour and means relevant to the matter in hand — related but not the same claim.

See the full C1 collocations list →

Formal, neutral or informal?

This page holds one word that means opposite things in British and American English, and a cluster of others that are open attacks rather than descriptions. Both kinds are easy to deploy by accident.

• mootReverses across the AtlanticIn British English a moot point is one open to debate. In American English moot increasingly means the opposite — no longer worth debating because it has been overtaken by events. Because the two readings conflict, in international writing say debatable or no longer relevant.
• polemicFormal · combativeA strongly argued attack on a position, as a noun; the adjective is polemical. Not an insult in itself — a polemic can be admired — but it does declare that the piece is arguing, not surveying.
• diatribePejorativeA long, bitter verbal attack. Unlike a polemic, this is never a compliment: calling something a diatribe says it was excessive. Lambaste is the matching verb — to criticise harshly and publicly.
• dogmaticPejorativeAsserting principles as unquestionable. Always a criticism, and note that the noun dogma is neutral in a religious context while the adjective in ordinary argument is not.
• belabourFixed phraseSurvives chiefly in belabour the point, meaning to go on explaining something already understood. British spelling keeps the -our.
• quibbleMildly dismissiveTo argue about something trivial. Both noun and verb, and using it about someone’s objection is itself a way of dismissing it: a minor quibble.
• adamant / vehement / categoricalDegrees of insistenceAdamant means refusing to be persuaded — from the old word for an unbreakable stone. Vehement describes force of feeling in the delivery. Categorical describes the statement itself: absolute and admitting no exception, as in a categorical denial.
• positAcademicTo put forward for consideration or assume as a basis: the paper posits three stages. Neutral and common in the humanities; in ordinary prose suggest or propose reads better.

Sentences to try

Four frames from advanced argument. Notice how much each verb actually claims.

• The paper rebuts three of the standard objections.
• That conclusion is a direct corollary of the first premise.
• She accepted the finding with one important caveat.
• His reasoning was cogent but rested on a fallacious premise.

Questions about argument & persuasion vocabulary