Quick Facts
- Related Topics:
- literature
- repetition
Adding us as a Preferred Source tells Google you trust our content, so our articles show up more often in your Google Search, Discover feed, and AI Overviews.
verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.
Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
polyptoton
literature
polyptoton, the rhetorical repetition within the same sentence of a word in a different case, inflection, or voice or of etymologically related words in different parts of speech. The device is exemplified in the following lines from T.S. Eliotās poem āThe Dry Salvagesā (1941):
There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,
No end to the withering of withered flowers,
To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,
To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage,
The boneās prayer to Death its God. Only the hardly, barely prayable
Prayer of the one Annunciation.

" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">