synecdoche

English

WOTD – 26 September 2006

Alternative forms

• syndoche, synechdoche

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin synecdochē, from Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ, “receiving together”) from σύν (sún, “with”) + ἐκ (ek, “out of”) + δέχεσθαι (dékhesthai, “to accept”), this last element related to δοκέω (dokéō, “to think, suppose, seem”).

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) in this episode the intrepid heroes unmask a vicious villain – the type (heroes) for the instance thereof (Batman and Robin) 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, or a specific kind or instance to represent the general category, or the general category to represent a specific kind or instance, or the constituent material to represent the thing made from it.

   Hypernyms: trope, figure of speech

   Hyponyms: pars pro toto (Latin), totum pro parte (Latin)

   Coordinate terms: metonymy, metaphor, figurativeness

   • 1835, L[arret] Langley, “[The Seven Tropes.] Synecdoche.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 9:

     Synecdoche the whole for part will take,
     Or part for whole, just for the metre's sake.

   • 2002 Sep, Christopher Hitchens, “Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight”, in The Atlantic:

     "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:

     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

Derived terms

• synecdochic
• synecdochical
• synecdochically
• synecdochize
• synecdochy

Related terms

• docetism

Translations

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

Afrikaans: sinekdogee 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 Esperanto: sinekdoĥo Finnish: synekdokee French: synecdoque (fr) f Georgian: სინეკდოქე (sineḳdoke) German: Synekdoche (de) f Greek: συνεκδοχή (el) f (synekdochí) Hebrew: סִינֶקְדּוֹכָה (he) f (sinekdokha) Hindi: सिनेकडकी f (sinekḍakī) Hungarian: szinekdoché (hu) Italian: sineddoche (it) f Japanese: 提喩 (ja) (ていゆ, teiyu), 提喩法 (ていゆほう, teiyuhō) Kazakh: синекдоха (sinekdoxa) Korean: 제유(提喩) (ko) (jeyu), 제유법(提喩法) (jeyubeop) Kyrgyz: синекдоха (sinekdoha) Lithuanian: sinekdocha (lt) f Macedonian: синегдоха f (sinegdoha) Occitan: sinecdòca f, sinecdòque Polish: synekdocha (pl) f Portuguese: sinédoque (pt) f Romanian: sinecdocă (ro) f Russian: сине́кдоха (ru) f (sinékdoxa) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: синегдоха f Roman: sinegdoha (sh) f Sicilian: sinèdduchi f Slovak: synekdocha f Spanish: sinécdoque (es) f Swedish: synekdoke (sv) c Tagalog: halisakop Tamil: ஆகுபெயர் (ta) (ākupeyar) Thai: สัมพจนัย (sǎm-pót-jà-nai) Turkish: sinekdoş Ukrainian: сине́кдоха f (synékdoxa) Uzbek: sinekdoxa (uz)

See also

• Category:English metonyms
• Category:English synecdoches
• holonymy
• meronymy
• metalepsis

Further reading

• synecdoche on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ, “receiving together”) from σύν (sún, “with”) + ἐκ (ek, “out of”) + δέχεσθαι (dékhesthai, “to accept”), this last element related to δοκέω (dokéō, “to think, suppose, seem”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [syˈnɛɡ.dɔ.kʰeː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [siˈnɛk.d̪o.ke]

Noun

synecdochē f (genitive synecdochēs); first declension

1. (original sense) the putting of a whole for a part
2. (Late Latin) (rhetoric) synecdoche (certain type of metaphor)

Declension

First-declension noun (Greek-type).

	singular	plural
nominative	synecdochē	synecdochae
genitive	synecdochēs	synecdochārum
dative	synecdochae	synecdochīs
accusative	synecdochēn	synecdochās
ablative	synecdochē	synecdochīs
vocative	synecdochē	synecdochae

Descendants

• → Dutch: synecdoche
• → English: synecdoche
• → Esperanto: sinekdoĥo
• → Finnish: synekdokee
• → French: synecdoque
• → German: Synekdoche
• → Italian: sineddoche
• → Portuguese: sinédoque
• → Romanian: sinecdocă
• → Spanish: sinécdoque

References

• “synecdoche”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “synecdoche”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Further reading

• synecdoche on Wikipedia.Wikipedia