polyptoton

English[edit]

WOTD – 8 May 2009

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polyptoton

Via Latin, from Ancient Greek πολύπτωτον (polúptōton), neuter of πολύπτωτος (polúptōtos, “having many cases”), from πολύς (polús, “many”) + πίπτω (píptō, “I fall”).

polyptoton (countable and uncountable, plural polyptota or polyptotons)

Examples (rhetoric)
William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595) With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.

(rhetoric) A stylistic scheme in which words from the same root are used together, or a word is repeated in a different inflection or case.
Hypernym: ploce
- 1835, L[arret] Langley, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster: Printed by C. White, Baxter-Gate, →OCLC, page 84:
  A Polyptoton still the same word places,
  If sense require it, in two different cases.

stylistic scheme in which words from the same root are used together, or a word is repeated in a different inflection or case