in rhetoric, a figure by which a person corrects, or ingeniously revokes, what he just before alleged, as being too weakly expressed, in order to add something stronger, and more conformable to the passion with which he is agitated.

The epanorthosis is distinguished into two kinds. The one is when we correct or revoke the word, as in the following example of the apostle, But I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me, 1 Cor. xv. 10. where, what, he first attributed to his own merit, he refuses afterwards to call the work of grace, as being the principal cause. The second kind of epanorthosis, is when we correct or revoke the sentiment, as in the following of Cicero: Italiae ornare, quam domum sum, maluit: quamquam, Italia ornata, domus ipsa mihi videtur ornata.