hendiadys

American  

[hen-dahy-uh-dis] / hɛnˈdaɪ ə dɪs /

noun

Rhetoric.

1. a figure in which a complex idea is expressed by two words connected by a copulative conjunction: “to look with eyes and envy” instead of “with envious eyes.”

---

hendiadys British  

/ hɛnˈdaɪədɪs /

noun

1. a rhetorical device by which two nouns joined by a conjunction, usually and, are used instead of a noun and a modifier, as in to run with fear and haste instead of to run with fearful haste

---

Etymology

Origin of hendiadys

1580–90; < Medieval Latin; alteration of Greek phrase hèn dià dyoîn one through two, one by means of two

Example Sentences

This line is a type of hendiadys, the first half of the line being redefined by the second.

From The Last Poems of Ovid by Akrigg, Mark Bear

The MS. authority is decidedly in favour of this, the more difficult reading; and the hendiadys is not more violent than those in Georg. ii.

From The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil

A hendiadys for 'Go drink all the mind-purging hellebore that grows in Anticyra'.

From The Last Poems of Ovid by Akrigg, Mark Bear

At EP I ii 77 he solves the difficulty through hendiadys: 'quid Sauromatae faciant, quid Iazyges acres'.

From The Last Poems of Ovid by Akrigg, Mark Bear