Ecphonesis
An exclamatory outcry — a short interjection expressing strong emotion.
Ecphonesis (also spelled ekphonesis) is a rhetorical figure of exclamation: a short, emotionally loaded outburst inserted into speech or prose to register intense feeling. From Greek ek- ('out') and phone ('voice'), the term names any brief, exclamatory cry — 'Alas!', 'O God!', 'What a fool I have been!' — used deliberately as a rhetorical device rather than as ordinary speech.
The figure sits at the emotional end of a family that includes apostrophe (an address to an absent person or thing) and interjection (any exclamation, rhetorically neutral). Ecphonesis is the specifically expressive form: it does not argue, it does not address anyone in particular, it simply lets the pressure of feeling out into a line of its own.
In classical oratory, ecphonesis marks the pivot from reasoning to appeal. A speaker who has been building a case in level sentences can, with one exclamatory line, register that the case has become unbearable — and invite the audience to feel the same weight. Modern prose uses the figure sparingly for the same reason: overused, it turns from feeling into melodrama.
Common mistake: exclamation as decoration. Ecphonesis works because it interrupts a controlled voice; a paragraph already crowded with exclamation marks has no controlled voice to interrupt, and the figure has nothing to break through.
“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”
Keep reading the glossary
A sudden turn of address, in which the speaker breaks off to address an absent person, thing, or abstraction.
The classical name for a rhetorical question — one asked for effect, not for information.
The immediate repetition of a word for emotional emphasis, without any intervening word.
A rhetorical expression of genuine or feigned doubt about how to proceed — the speaker stops to wonder aloud.