| 1. | a subject of conversation or discussion: to provide a topic for discussion. |
| 2. | the subject or theme of a discourse or of one of its parts. |
| 3. | Rhetoric, Logic. a general field of considerations from which arguments can be drawn. |
| 4. | Also called theme. Linguistics. the part of a sentence that announces the item about which the rest of the sentence communicates information, often signaled by initial position in the sentence or by a grammatical marker. Compare comment (def. 6). |
top·ic (tŏp'ĭk) n.
[Obsolete topic, rhetorical argument, sing. of Topics, title of a work by Aristotle, from Latin Topica, from Greek Topika, commonplaces, from neuter pl. of topikos, of a place, from topos, place.] |