incremental repetition

American  

noun

Prosody.

1. repetition, with variation, of a refrain or other part of a poem, especially a ballad.

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Etymology

Origin of incremental repetition

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

The bulk of the lines to these songs, as is the case in all communal music, is made up of choral iteration and incremental repetition of the leader's lines.

From The Book of American Negro Poetry by Johnson, James Weldon

Dances, as overwhelming evidence, ethnological and sociological, can prove, were the original stuff upon which dramatic, lyric and epic impulses wove a pattern that is traced in later narrative ballads mainly as incremental repetition.

From A Study of Poetry by Perry, Bliss

Iteration is the chief mark of ballad style; and the favorite form of this effective figure is what one may call incremental repetition.

From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 3 by Mabie, Hamilton Wright