The system of three genera dicendi (Lat. also elocutionis genera, “types of linguistic expression”) is also called the Dreistillehre or three-style system. The term comes from classical rhetoric and governs the distinction between the stylistic levels of texts based on historically variable criteria. The term denotes the stylistic levels that identify each text. Alternative stylistic definitions were always possible, but the three-style system was the best known.

Greco-Roman rhetoric called the three different levels of discourse genus subtile/humile (“low styl…