In plural. Rhetorical figures or devices; ornaments or embellishments of style and diction intended to persuade the reader or listener. Frequently in…

An elegant expression; a rhetorical flourish; (also) a rhetorical figure. Also in extended use. Chiefly in plural. rare after 17th cent.

concrete. A plaything, toy. Also (now always), something gaudy; a showy ornament, a piece of finery; a gewgaw. Now rhetorical.

An embellishment or ornament (of speech); a choice phrase. rare in singular.

Literary or rhetorical embellishment; ambitious copiousness or amplification; parade of fine words or phrases; a florid expression.

That which embellishes or beautifies, literal and figurative; an ornament, decoration, setting off; esp. a grace of diction or composition, a…

A flower (of speech); an embellishment or ornament.

An embellishment or ornament (of speech). Obsolete. Cf. German floskel.

A decoration, a distinction. Obsolete.

nonce use. ‘Flowers’ of speech.

Something appended or added to a writing or speech, esp. by way of ornament or improvement, e.g. the moral of a fable, etc.