exordium

Their invitation Dr. Fosdick expressed in a great exordium: The great east window of Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church has long needed proper furbishing in stained glass.

From Time Magazine Archive

I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued—

From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

The purpose of the exordium is to put the audience into a receptive and attentive frame of mind.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

And yet his royal blood did not save him from the most ignoble and ignominious birth, and obscure exordium of his earth life.

From The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

Mr. Binney had been getting very red during the passing of this exordium on his conduct.

From Peter Binney A Novel by Archibald Marshall

They were seeking to catch some lyric exordia as they flew by immersed in the billows of the air.

From The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1 by Aristophanes

Matteo is valuable for the general reflections which form exordia to the eleven books that bear his name.

From Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) The Age of the Despots by John Addington Symonds

I imagine that this sacred influence, under the name of Amphi, is often alluded to in the exordia of Poets, especially by the writers in Dithyrambic measure, when they address Apollo.

From A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. by Jacob Bryant

But in the exordia and perorations to the several books, as well as in sundry digressions, may be found matter of greater value, embodying the poet's views on the great questions of philosophy.

From The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius by Charles Thomas Cruttwell

And so we need not trouble ourselves any more either about the insertions or about the exordiums.

From Joseph Andrews Vol 1 by Henry Fielding

That is contrary to received rules, which effects no one of those objects for the sake of which the rules concerning exordiums have been handed down.

From The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 by Marcus Tullius Cicero

In his hortatory asides and didactic moralizings with their thees and thous and yeas, he is still the fine essayist, like Fielding in his eighteenth century prefatory exordiums.

From Masters of the English Novel A Study of Principles and Personalities by Richard Burton

Of all Eleanor's exordiums it is the one I most dread.

From Crucial Instances by Edith Wharton

The defence has already been made by an illustrious hand for Fielding's inter-chapters and exordiums.

From Joseph Andrews Vol 1 by Henry Fielding