zeugma


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zeug·ma

 (zo͞og′mə)
n.
1. Syllepsis.
2. A construction in which one word or phrase is understood to fill a parallel syntactic role in two or more clauses or phrases, as with the verb was in She was upstairs, and her husband downstairs.
[Latin, from Greek, a joining, bond; see yeug- in Indo-European roots.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

zeugma

(ˈzjuːɡmə)
n
(Literary & Literary Critical Terms) a figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words although appropriate to only one of them or making a different sense with each, as in the sentence Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave (Charles Dickens)
[C16: via Latin from Greek: a yoking, from zeugnunai to yoke]
zeugmatic adj
zeugˈmatically adv
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

zeug•ma

(ˈzug mə)

n.
the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way, as in to wage war and peace or He caught a trout and a bad cold.
[1515–25; < Greek zeûgma=zeug(nýnai) to join, yoke + -ma n. suffix of result]
zeug•mat′ic (-ˈmæt ɪk) adj.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

zeugma

the use of a word grammatically related to two adjacent words, but inappropriate for one of them, as in “he loved both his wife and his wallet.” — zeugmatic, adj.
See also: Rhetoric and Rhetorical Devices
-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.zeugma - use of a word to govern two or more words though appropriate to only one; "`Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave' is an example of zeugma"
figure of speech, trope, image, figure - language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense
syllepsis - use of a word to govern two or more words though agreeing in number or case etc. with only one
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations
zeugmazeugme
zeugma

zeugma

n → Zeugma nt
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007
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References in periodicals archive ?
"Apo koinou, Greek for 'in common,' is a figure of speech, a variety of zeugma, in which a single word or phrase is shared between two distinct, independent syntactic units." (37) Avi-ram remarks:
Audre Lorde: textual authority and the embodied self
Episodes include: (1) "Mysterious Life of Caves" which investigates the role microbes play in the creation of some limestone caves; (2) "Lost Roman Treasure" which follows archaeologists working on artifacts in Turkey's ancient city of Zeugma; (3) "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens" which explores the story of Galileo Galilei; (4) "Volcano's Deadly Warning" which describes how volcanologists predict eruptions; and (5) "Sinking City of Venice" which examines the threat from floods Venice, Italy faces.
NOVA Fall 2002 Teacher's Guide
* The dammed waters from the Euphrates River in Southeast Turkey continue to rise, and a second part of the ancient Roman legionary city of Zeugma has been swallowed up.
ART hotline
AFTER APPEARING ON THE FRONT PAGE of the New York Times (`Dam in Turkey May Soon Flood A "2nd Pompeii"' on May 7th this year), as well as numerous other national newspapers, the Euphrates bridge-town of Zeugma, virtually unknown a few months ago, has witnessed a major rescue excavation on the lower terraces of the Graeco-Roman city as the waters from the $1.5 billion Biricek dam rose day-by-day.
Rescue on the Euphrates
A new dam threatens to plunge the ruins of Zeugma, a 2,000-year-old outpost of the Roman Empire, underwater.
Buried Cities
THIS summer, Zeugma, a vast and magnificent ancient city, all but disappeared from the face of the Earth.
PICK OF THE BOX; Andy's peaks and troughs
Jon Gorvett reports from Turkey on the last fleeting glimpse of parts of the ancient Roman city of Zeugma before it sank beneath the waters of the Birecik dam.
The glory that was Zeugma ..
Douglass' antithetical comparison embodies the rhetorical strategy used throughout the Narrative, which depends upon ironic chiasmus--the mirror inversion of a clause within a sentence--and sardonic zeugma, or the yoking of dependent clauses and words to a single verb.
"Why am I called upon to speak here to-day?" The jeremiad in the speeches and writings of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X
Curnow makes of Stevens's phrase a sardonic zeugma by using 'that'd be' twice, first with the simple predicate 'freedom' and second with the predicate 'day', forming the idiom 'that'd be the day', used in colloquial English to suggest the impossibility of a wished-for state.
'A war between the mind and sky': the praeteritic antithesis in Curnow & Stevens
The effect is based on a clever zeugma; both pewter and the soul can "glimmer," be "fogged up" or "glitter." So, the poet is not only celebrating his Irish ancestors through his meditation on pewter.
The turf cutter and the nine-to-five man: Heaney, Larkin, and "the spiritual intellect's great work." (poets Seamus Heaney and Philip Larkin)

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