hendiadys

noun

hendiadys

noun

/hɛnˈdaɪ.ədɪs/

Etymology From Medieval Latin, from Ancient Greek ἕν (hén), stem of εἷς (heîs, “one”) + διά (diá, “through”) + δύο (dúo, “two”), “one [idea] through two [words]”.

1

Rhetoric A figure of speech used for emphasis, where two words joined by and are used to express a single complex idea.

  • Some examples of hendiadys comprise two words in the bound state; others, two words in appositional hendiadys. It would seem that certain cases of appositional hendiadys are closely related to wordpairs (see WORD-PAIRS, BREAK-UP), though which way the development proceeded is far from certain.1984, Wilfred G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 327:
  • Each illustrates a different facet of verbal hendiadys in English.2002, Joan L. Bybee, Michael Noonan, Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse, page 152:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.