synecdoche

English

WOTD – 26 September 2006

Alternative forms

• syndoche
• synechdoche

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin synecdochē, from Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ, “receiving together”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɪˈnɛk.də.ki/, /sɪˈnɛk.doʊ.ki/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

Examples

fifty head of cattle — part (head) for whole (animal) a fleet of ships, fifty sail deep — part (sail) for whole (ship) the police knocked down my door — whole (the police) for part (some police officers) hand me a Kleenex — subclass (brand named product) for class (all similar products) China maintains closer high-level ties with Pyongyang — country (China) for its government (Chinese government) and capital (Pyongyang) for its country (North Korea)

synecdoche (countable and uncountable, plural synecdoches)

1. (rhetoric) A figure of speech that uses the name of a part of something to represent the whole, or the whole to represent a part.

   Hyponyms: pars pro toto, totum pro parte

   Hypernym: metonymy

   • 2002, Christopher Hitchens, "Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight", The Atlantic, Sep 2002:

     "Holocaust" can become a tired synecdoche for war crimes in general.

   • 2017 May 17, Dorian Lynskey, “The 20-year-old black mirror that reflects the world today”, in BBC.com Culture‎^[1]:

     Perhaps being in a touring band was, to Yorke, a synecdoche for the modern condition: disorientation, alienation, rootlessness, exhaustion, lack of control, occasional derangement, constant motion.

2. (rhetoric) The use of this figure of speech.

   Synonym: synecdochy

Usage notes

Technically, a synecdoche is a part of the referent while a metonym is connected or associated but not necessarily a part of it.

Derived terms

• synecdochic
• synecdochical
• synecdochically
• synecdochy

 

Related terms

• docetism
• meronymy

Translations

figure of speech that uses the name of a part of something to represent the whole

• Albanian: sinekdohë f
• Armenian: սինեկդոխա (hy) (sinekdoxa), համըմբռնում (hy) (haməmbṙnum)
• Azerbaijani: sinekdoxa
• Belarusian: сіне́кдаха f (sinjékdaxa)
• Bulgarian: сине́кдоха (bg) f (sinékdoha)
• Catalan: sinècdoque f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 提喻 (tíyù), 提喻法 (zh) (tíyùfǎ)

• Czech: synekdocha f
• Dutch: synecdoche (nl) f
• Finnish: synekdokee
• French: synecdoque (fr) f
• Georgian: სინეკდოხა (sineḳdoxa)
• German: Synekdoche (de) f
• Greek: συνεκδοχή (el) f (synekdochí)
• Hebrew: סִינֶקְדּוֹכָה (he) f (sinekdokha)
• Hindi: सिनेकडकी f (sinekḍakī)
• Hungarian: szinekdoché
• Italian: sineddoche (it) f
• Japanese: 提喩 (ja) (ていゆ, teiyu), 提喩法 (ていゆほう, teiyuhō)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Kazakh: синекдоха (sinekdoxa)
• Korean: 제유 (ko) (jeyu), 제유법 (jeyubeop)
• Kyrgyz: синекдоха (sinekdoha)
• Lithuanian: sinekdocha (lt) f
• Macedonian: синегдоха f (sinegdoha)
• Occitan: sinecdòca f, sinecdòque
• Polish: synekdocha f
• Portuguese: sinédoque (pt) f
• Romanian: sinecdocă (ro) f
• Russian: сине́кдоха (ru) f (sinékdoxa)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: синегдоха f

  Roman: sinegdoha (sh) f

• Slovak: synekdocha f
• Spanish: sinécdoque (es) f
• Tagalog: halisakop
• Thai: สัมพจนัย (sǎm-pót-jà-nai)
• Turkish: sinekdoş
• Ukrainian: сине́кдоха f (synékdoxa)
• Uzbek: sinekdoxa (uz)

See also

• metaphor
• metonymy

Further reading

• synecdoche on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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Dutch

Etymology

From Latin synecdoche, from Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ, “receiving together”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sinɛkˈdoːxə/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

synecdoche f (plural synecdoches, diminutive synecdochetje n)

1. (literature) synecdoche

See also

• metonymia