Words & WritingGreek → English
Anadiplosis
/ˌanədɪˈpləʊsɪs/noun
The figure of repeating the last word of one clause at the start of the next.
The Greek roots
ἀνά
aná
back, again
διπλόος
diplóos
double, folded
Literally: “a doubling back”
The story of the word
Greek ἀναδίπλωσις meant a folding back, the word used for doubling a garment over. Yoda's line about fear leading to anger, anger leading to hate, is textbook anadiplosis, and so is the King James chain about tribulation working patience and patience experience. Repeat the device down a whole series and rhetoricians call it gradatio, a staircase.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
diplomadiplomatdiploidanabasis
In a sentence
The refrain uses anadiplosis to pull each line into the next.
He built the closing paragraph on anadiplosis and it worked.