ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

AT-HAR9-0009 · ATLAS 260

Chreia

A concise exemplary account of a person's saying or action.

Part of the subject path Rhetoric and Style

Why is this entry in the Atlas?

F · Figure / procedure R1 · Distinct contribution to understanding

Chreia isolates a concise personal saying or action preserved for exemplary significance and available for subsequent rhetorical development. A gnome requires no particular person, whereas this concise recollection remains attached to someone's saying or act.

Colours and admission grounds

The rectangular label identifies the entry function: F – linguistic figure or procedure; A – analytical concept; G – foundational concept; E – selected concrete case. The rounded badge indicates the admission ground: R1 – distinctive contribution; R2 – necessary foundation; R3 – justified illustrative case. This editorial rationale explains the current selection rather than claiming an undocumented original selection history.

Explanation

Chreia is a concise account of a saying or action attributed to a particular person and carrying exemplary meaning. Person, occasion, and pointed response form a teachable miniature that rhetorical education could expand, justify, refute, or transfer to new situations. Memorability arises from joining thought to embodied scene. For that reason, analysis must separate historical attribution from didactic shaping: an effective chreia may be culturally true without being verbatim documentation. Source, variants, point, and the norm inferred from the particular case all require examination.

Movement of thought

1. Person, situation, saying or action, and attributed point are reconstructed separately. 2. Sources and variants reveal which elements are documented and which are didactically shaped. 3. The exemplary inference is stated explicitly as value, rule, practical wisdom, or countermodel. 4. A divergent context tests whether the lesson transfers or depends upon the singular scene. 5. Analysis returns to the miniature and holds embodiment, memorability, and uncertainty together.

Scientific use case

Rhetorical history, classical philology, education, memory, and reception studies analyse chreiai through variant and attribution criticism. They reveal how teaching traditions shape persons into bearers of portable figures of thought.

Example

When the cartographer was asked for the completed map, she pointed to its open margin: “That is where the atlas begins.” The scene embodies methodological openness as a memorable stance.

Counterexample

An aphorism without person and situation, an arbitrary anecdote, or every exemplum is not chreia. A concise saying or action of a specified person must be developed exemplarily.

Distinction

Distinguish chreia from exemplum, anecdote, apophthegm, and maxim. Chreia is concise, person-bound, and open to exemplary elaboration; exemplum may be broader, while a maxim needs no concrete person.

Effect on thought and perception

Chreia gives abstract insight a body, voice, and situation, increasing teachability and recall. It can also simplify complex lives into moral miniatures and generate invented authority.

Resonance

A thought acquires a body, a voice, and a concrete moment. With every retelling, the scene sounds anew and carries its lesson into another context.

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Chreia“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-HAR9-0009. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HAR9-0009

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HAR9-0009

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Historical background

Bullinger differentiates an accepted maxim without a named author from a saying attributed to a person, calling the latter chreia. This is a specific handbook boundary, not the whole history of the ancient educational exercise associated with memorable words or actions. The attribution changes how a saying is received: an audience encounters not only a proposition but also an invoked authority. For the Atlas, the countertest asks whether naming the speaker adds relevant context or substitutes prestige for examination of the claim. Bullinger’s concise classification documents one English reception of chreia and its neighbours. A fuller history must return to rhetorical teaching practices and distinguish the exercise of elaborating a saying from merely citing its alleged author.

How conceptual history changes the analysis

Ask whether attribution supplies relevant context or only prestige. The speaker’s fame does not establish the proposition.

References for the historical section

  • E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), Cornell scan · PDF p. 834: Gnome, Noema and Chreia

    Selected historical witness, not a complete genealogy or a first English attestation. Atlas comparisons and applications are original editorial interpretations. Uncorrected scan text layer; page numbers are PDF pages. Bullinger’s classifications and theological judgments are historical evidence, not a current consensus.

  • E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), Cornell scan · PDF p. 834: Gnome, Noema and Chreia

    Selected historical witness, not a complete genealogy or a first English attestation. Atlas comparisons and applications are original editorial interpretations. Uncorrected scan text layer; page numbers are PDF pages. Bullinger’s classifications and theological judgments are historical evidence, not a current consensus.

Historical source evidence and Atlas applications remain separate; this import does not assert new first attestations or a fresh exhaustive source verification.