Words & WritingGreek → English
Anacoluthon
/ˌænəkəˈluːθɒn/noun
A sentence that breaks off its own grammar and continues in a construction the opening did not set up.
The Greek roots
ἀν-
an-
not
ἀκόλουθος
akólouthos
following, consistent
Literally: “not following on”
The story of the word
Greek critics used ἀνακόλουθον for a construction that fails to follow through, from the same ἀκόλουθος that gives acolyte, the attendant who follows. Sometimes it is a mistake and sometimes it is craft: Virgil's unfinished threat in the Aeneid, quos ego, breaks off precisely because Neptune is too angry to finish. Live speech is full of them, which is why transcripts of ordinary conversation read as broken.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
acolyteanacoluthic
In a sentence
The witness produced a long anacoluthon that started as a denial and ended as an excuse.