isocolon

American  

[ahy-suh-koh-luhn] / ˈaɪ səˌkoʊ lən /

noun

Rhetoric.

plural

isocola

1. a figure of speech or sentence having a parallel structure formed by the use of two or more clauses, or cola, of similar length, as “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

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Etymology

Origin of isocolon

1550–60; < Greek isókōlon, from neuter of isókōlos “of equal members,” equivalent to iso- (meaning “equal”) + colon ¹ (in the sense “a rhythmic measure within a prosodic sequence”)

Example Sentences

That is why the lengths of cola matter—isocolon being a balancing of clauses of the same length: “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons”—and why a “rising tricolon,” strictly defined, is one in which the clauses increase not necessarily in importance but in length: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

From Literature

Reductio ad absurdum, by this token, would be classed as a figure of thought, whereas isocolon—a sequence of phrases the same length—or alliteration would be figures of speech.

From Literature