/top"ik/ , n.
1. a subject of conversation or discussion: to provide a topic for discussion.
2. the subject or theme of a discourse or of one of its parts.
3. Rhet. , Logic. a general field of considerations from which arguments can be drawn.
4. Also called theme . Ling. the part of a sentence that announces the item about which the rest of the sentence communicates information, often signaled by initial position in the sentence or by a grammatical marker. Cf. comment (def. 6).
[ 1560-70; topica (pl.) tà ) topiká name of work by Aristotle (lit., (things) pertaining to commonplaces), equiv. to tóp ( os ) commonplace + -ika, neut. pl. of -ikos -IC; see TOPO- ]
Syn. 2. thesis, subject matter. See subject .