From Richard Nordquist,
Your Guide to Grammar & Composition.
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Definition:

The use of appeals to reasons, values, beliefs, and emotions to convince a listener or reader to think or act in a particular way. Aristotle defined rhetoric as "an ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion."

Etymology:

From the Latin, "to persuade"

Examples and Observations:

• "Character [ethos] may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion."
  (Aristotle, Rhetoric)



• "Oral delivery aims at persuasion and making the listener believe he has been converted. Few persons are capable of being convinced; the majority allow themselves to be persuaded."
  (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)



• "In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance."
  (Thomas Jefferson)



• "The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion."
  (Thomas Babington Macaulay)



• "Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both."
  (George Bernard Shaw)



• "He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense."
  (Joseph Conrad)



• "The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders."
  (Eric Hoffer)



• "The best way to persuade people is with your ears--by listening to them."
  (Dean Rusk)



• "I don't know the rules of grammar. If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language."
  (David Ogilvy)

Pronunciation: pur-ZWAY-shun