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• n  (rhetoric) the introductory section of an oration or discourse

• Master Sessions' exordium: "We should educate the masses in the duties of good citizenship, in a better understanding and appreciation of the spirit of the American Government .
• Instead of constructing a speech on the old Ciceronian blueprint (exordium, argument, refutation, peroration and so on) or even on a less classical pattern (beginning, middle .
• From the exordium, to the "new" series (stature, splendor, medium, spaciousness, mobility, radiance), and on to the "one-of-thes" ("most gratifying payoffs," "few outstanding .