syllepsis

American  

[si-lep-sis] / sɪˈlɛp sɪs /

noun

Grammar.

plural

syllepses

1. the use of a word or expression to perform two syntactic functions, especially to modify two or more words of which at least one does not agree in number, case, or gender, as the use of are in Neither he nor we are willing.

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syllepsis British  

/ sɪˈlɛpsɪs /

noun

1. (in grammar or rhetoric) the use of a single sentence construction in which a verb, adjective, etc is made to cover two syntactical functions, as the verb form have in she and they have promised to come

2. another word for zeugma

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Other Word Forms

• sylleptic adjective
• sylleptically adverb

Etymology

Origin of syllepsis

1570–80; < Medieval Latin syllēpsis < Greek sýllēpsis, equivalent to syl- syl- + lēb- (variant stem of lambánein to take) + -sis -sis

Example Sentences

The Greek apparatus of rhetoric is a brilliantly elaborate armamentarium of speechmakers' devices�synecdoche, syllepsis, symploce and so on.

From Time Magazine Archive

For example: Here’s an explanation of the rhetorical term syllepsis: “the use of a word that relates to, qualifies, or governs two or more other words but has a different meaning in relation to each.”

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

For a Creed is or ought to be a syllepsis of those primary fundamental truths that are, as it were, the starting-post, from which the Christian must commence his progression.

From Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Now, for the first time at the apex of the living pyramid, it is Man and Nature, but Man himself is a syllepsis, a compendium of Nature—the Microcosm!

From Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor