homiletics

noun

Etymology: From Ancient Greek ὁμιλητική (homilētikḗ). Compare ὅμιλος (hómilos, “crowd, throng”), ὁμῑλέω (homīléō, “to be with, to talk”), and ομιλώ (omilṓ, “to talk”).

1. The art of preaching (especially the application of rhetoric in theology).

   “We will consider first what is common to Rhetoric and Homiletics, then what is special to the latter. Rhetoric is the genus, Homiletics the species.”

   “Thus theology got on its legs, both as a science and as an art, and with it its faithful handmaiden, homiletics.”