different between synecdoche vs merismus

English

Alternative forms

• syndoche
• synechdoche

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin synecdoch?, from Ancient Greek ????????? (sunekdokh?, “receiving together”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s??n?k.d?.ki/, /s??n?k.do?.ki/

Noun

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.
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

Related terms

• docetism
• meronymy

Translations

See also

• metaphor
• metonymy

Further reading

• synecdoche on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Dutch

Etymology

From Latin synecdoche, from Ancient Greek ????????? (sunekdokh?, “receiving together”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sin?k?do?x?/

Noun

synecdoche f (plural synecdoches, diminutive synecdochetje n)

1. (literature) synecdoche

See also

• metonymia

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ???????? (merismós, “a dividing”), derived from the Ancient Greek verb ?????? (meríz?, “to divide into parts”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m????zm?s/

Noun

merismus

1. (rhetoric) A metonymic term to describe a type of synecdoche in which two parts of a thing, perhaps contrasting or complementary parts, are made to stand for the whole.

Usage notes

The term was generally used around in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (It can be found used to describe both Shakespeare and Christian Reformation theologians by their contemporaries.) It then seems to have fallen into disuse, only being revived in the middle of the twentieth century.

References

• merismus, in Worldwide Words.com'