zeugma

[zoog-muh]

noun

Grammar, Rhetoric.

1. the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way, as in to wage war and peace or On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold.

zeugma

/ zjuːɡˈmætɪk, ˈzjuːɡmə /

noun

1. a figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words although appropriate to only one of them or making a different sense with each, as in the sentence Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave (Charles Dickens)

Other Word Forms

• zeugmatic adjective
• zeugmatically adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of zeugma¹

First recorded in 1515–25; from Greek zeûgma “a yoking, bond,” equivalent to zeug(nýnai) “to yoke ¹ ” + -ma noun suffix of result

Word History and Origins

Origin of zeugma¹

C16: via Latin from Greek: a yoking, from zeugnunai to yoke

Example Sentences

This is a zeugma: the intentional juxtaposition of different senses of a single word.

Read more on Literature

More omens appear in the encounter with the traveller selling quartz hearts, an incident relayed with a nicely-underlined zeugma when s/he "prophecies a wild affair/ and light rain, though in no particular/ order".

Read more on The Guardian

A few may think of rhetoric as a deadly classical discipline devoted to the exhaustive parsing and labeling of figures of speech: zeugma, anyone?

Read more on Salon

One example at random: "You may not make the headlines, but you can always make the difference" – a zeugma there.

Read more on The Guardian

There is a zeugma in speaks as applied to ‘thunder’ and ‘chains,’ unless it be taken as in both cases equivalent to denounces.

Read more on Project Gutenberg