emotional appeal

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable or uncountable

   A way of persuading people by stirring their feelings, such as pity, fear or pride, rather than relying only on facts and logic.

   Grammar: Can be countable (an emotional appeal) or uncountable (relies on emotional appeal).

   Patterns

   • make an emotional appeal
   • rely on emotional appeal

   The charity ad made a strong emotional appeal with photos of hungry children.

   Politicians often rely on emotional appeal when facts are against them.

   Her speech used emotional appeal to bring the audience to tears.

2. 2noununcountable

   The quality that makes something attract people through their feelings, such as a film, brand or story that feels warm or moving.

   Grammar: No plural: the story has emotional appeal.

   Patterns

   • have emotional appeal
   • the emotional appeal of something

   The old brand has a nostalgic emotional appeal for many customers.

   Vinyl records keep an emotional appeal that streaming lacks.

   The emotional appeal of the story made it popular worldwide.

Word forms

Common combinations

make an emotional appeal

The lawyer made an emotional appeal to the jury.

strong emotional appeal

The poster has a strong emotional appeal.

rely on emotional appeal

Many ads rely on emotional appeal rather than product facts.

emotional appeal to fear

An emotional appeal to fear can make people act quickly.

lack emotional appeal

The report lacked emotional appeal, so few people read it.

Synonyms and how they differ

pathos

Pathos is the rhetoric term for appealing to feelings, while emotional appeal is the everyday phrase and sounds less academic.

sentimentality

Sentimentality suggests an excess of tender feeling, whereas emotional appeal can include fear, anger or pride.

tearjerker

A tearjerker is a story that makes people cry, and it is a thing, not a technique like emotional appeal.

Opposites

Word family

appeal noun

a request or the power to attract

emotional adjective

connected with feelings

appeal to verb

to attract or to address someone's feelings

emotionally adverb

in a way that involves feelings

Commonly confused: emotional appeal or emotive?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “emotional appeal”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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