pentad

A pentad is a term used to denote a group or set of five elements, parts, or members. The word derives from the Greek pente meaning five, and is related to other five-forms such as pentagon and pentagram. In general use, pentad can refer to any five-member collection, including committees, groups of five people, or a sequence of five items, though more specific terms such as quintet or five-tuple are often preferred in particular disciplines.

In rhetoric, the dramatistic pentad is a well-known analytical framework developed by Kenneth Burke. It breaks discourse into five interrelated components: Act (what was done), Scene (the context), Agent (who performed the act), Agency (how the act was performed), and Purpose (why the act was performed). The pentad is used to interpret motives, meaning, and causation in texts and speeches by examining tensions and alignments among its elements.

Beyond rhetoric, pentad appears in various scientific and scholarly contexts to indicate five-part structures. For example, in biology or morphology, discussions of pentamerous flowers or pentadactyl limbs describe arrangements in fives, though such usage is often complemented by more specific terms. In mathematics or computer science, pentad may be used informally to denote a five-element set or a five-tuple, but is less common than quintet or five-tuple terminology.

See also quintet, quintuplet.