A figure of speech in which the speaker directly addresses an absent person, an abstract idea, or an inanimate object. Technical term used in rhetoric and literary analysis.
"O liberty!" is an example of apostrophe.
A Sino-Japanese compound formed from 頓 (sudden, immediate) and 呼 (call) plus 法 (method, rule). The exact historical derivation is uncertain; the term is used in Japanese rhetoric to translate the Western concept of apostrophe.