syllepsis

noun syl·lep·sis \ sə-ˈlep-səs \

Updated on: 28 Feb 2018

Definition of syllepsis

plural syllepses play \sə-ˈlep-ˌsēz\

1 : the use of a word to modify or govern syntactically two or more words with only one of which it formally agrees in gender, number, or case

2 : the use of a word in the same grammatical relation to two adjacent words in the context with one literal and the other metaphorical in sense

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sylleptic

play \sə-ˈlep-tik\ adjective

syllepsis was our Word of the Day on 09/23/2014. Hear the podcast!

Did You Know?

Charles Dickens made good use of syllepsis in The Pickwick Papers when he wrote that his character Miss Bolo "went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan chair." Such uses are humorously incongruous, but they’re not grammatically incorrect. Syllepsis as defined at sense 1, however, is something to be generally avoided. For example, take this sentence, "She exercises to keep healthy and I to lose weight." The syllepsis occurs with the verb exercises. The problem is that only one subject, "she" (not "I"), agrees with the verb. The word syllepsis derives from the Greek syllēpsis, and ultimately from syllambanein, meaning "to gather together." It has been used in English since at least 1550.