Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A verbal construction in which a word governs two or more other words but agrees in number, gender, or case with only one, or has a different meaning when applied to each of the words, as in He lost his coat and his temper.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In rhetoric and grammar: A figure by which a word is used in the same passage both of the person to whom or the thing to which it properly applies, and also to include other persons or things to which it does not apply properly or strictly.
- noun A figure by which one word is referred to another in the sentence to which it does not grammatically belong, as the agreement of a verb or an adjective with one rather than another of two nouns with either of which it might agree: as, rex et regina beati.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Rhet.) A figure of speech by which a word is used in a literal and metaphorical sense at the same time.
- noun (Gram.) The agreement of a verb or adjective with one, rather than another, of two nouns, with either of which it might agree in gender, number, etc.; as, rex et regina beati.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun rhetoric A
figure of speech in which oneword simultaneously modifies two or more other words such that the modification must beunderstood differently with respect to each modified word; often causinghumorous incongruity - noun botany
Growth in whichlateral branches develop from a lateralmeristem , without the formation of abud or period ofdormancy , when the lateral meristem is split from aterminal meristem.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun use of a word to govern two or more words though agreeing in number or case etc. with only one
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Surely someone like Hofmeister will be able to skim enough to put away a tidy nest egg of several hundred million at least in Euros and Amstersdam (pardon the syllepsis).
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I think this is the most entertaining Volokh thread since syllepsis!
The Volokh Conspiracy » Clive Crook (at The Atlantic) on “ClimateGate” 2009
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This is a typical instance of Ovid's love of _syllepsis_, of giving a single verb two objects (or more), each of which uses a different meaning of the verb.
The Last Poems of Ovid 43 BC-18? Ovid
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= For Ovid's use of syllepsis, see at vi 16 _spem nostram terras deseruitque simul_ (p 234).
The Last Poems of Ovid 43 BC-18? Ovid
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These know not the figure syllepsis, by which one name is put for many, and many for one; as Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews says, "They were sawn asunder," [Heb 11: 37] when it is thought that one only,
Catena Aurea - Gospel of Matthew 1225?-1274 1842
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Progrezzive: This is how the checks and balances are suppose to syllepsis 14 minutes ago 7:12 PM
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011
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GOATLEY3: Sorry but I'm not willing to spill one more drop Here we go again, another kinetic military action for humanitari lqw: Here we go again, another kinetic military action for humanitarian syllepsis 29 minutes ago 10:36 PM I wonder why they haven't bombed Assad's compound yet.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011
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But ignorance of the article doesn't seem syllepsis 1 minute ago 7:26 PM
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011
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Man and Nature, but Man himself is a syllepsis, a compendium of Nature — the
Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803
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Incidentally, you might recognise that rhetorical shimmy as a variation of syllepsis: a fairly easy word to avoid, it must be admitted, but as hair-raising for me to pronounce as
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph 2010
jmjarmstrong commented on the word syllepsis
JM agrees that we must all use syllepsis together or assuredly we will all use syllepsis separately.
March 24, 2011