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Webster 1913 Edition

Metalepsis

‖

Metˊa-lep′sis

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Metalepses
(#)
.
[L., fr. Gr. [GREEK] participation, alteration, fr. [GREEK] to partake, to take in exchange; [GREEK] beyond + [GREEK] to take.]
(Rhet.)
The continuation of a trope in one word through a succession of significations, or the union of two or more tropes of a different kind in one word.

Webster 1828 Edition

Metalepsis

METALEP'SIS

,
Noun.
[Gr. participation; beyond, and to take.]
In rhetoric, the continuation of a trope in one word through a succession of significations, or the union of two or more tropes of a different kind in one word, so that several gradations or intervening senses come between the word expressed and the thing intended by it; as 'in one Caesar there are many Mariuses.' Here Marius, by a synecdoche or antonomasy, is put for any ambitious, turbulent man, and this, by a metonymy of the cause, for the ill effects of such a temper to the public.

Definition 2024

metalepsis

metalepsis

English

Examples (serial application of tropes)

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
- Chistopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
Face is a metonymy for "person" or "woman" (Helen), a metonymy for Paris's motivation, casus belli for the Trojan War (metaphorically, "launched a thousand ships"), which led to the sacking of Troy, metonymically invoked by "burnt the topless towers of Ilium".

Noun

metalepsis ‎(plural metalepses)

  1. (rhetoric) A rhetorical device whereby one word is metonymically substituted for another word which is itself a metonym; more broadly, a metaphor consisting of a series of embedded metonyms or rhetorical substitutions.

Synonyms

See also

Etymology

From Late Latin metalepsis, variant of Latin metalēmpsis, from Ancient Greek μετάληψις ‎(metálēpsis, “succession”).

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