synecdoche

• syndoche, synechdoche

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”).

• IPA^(key): /sɪˈnɛk.də.ki/, /sɪˈnɛk.doʊ.ki/

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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.

   Hypernym: metonymy

   Hyponyms: pars pro toto, totum pro parte

   • 1835, L[arret] Langley, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster: Printed by C. White, Baxter-Gate, →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

Technically, a synecdoche is a part of the referent while a metonym is connected or associated but not necessarily a part of it.

• docetism
• meronymy

• metaphor
• metonymy

• synecdoche on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Latin synecdoche, from Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ, “receiving together”).

• IPA^(key): /sinɛkˈdoːxə/

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synecdoche f (plural synecdoches, diminutive synecdochetje n)

1. (literature) synecdoche

• metonymia