Words & WritingGreek → English
Anaphora
/əˈnæfərə/noun
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the start of successive clauses, and in grammar the way a pronoun points back to something already said.
The Greek roots
ἀνά
aná
up, back
φορά
phorá
a carrying
Literally: “a carrying back”
The story of the word
One Greek word carries three trades. Rhetoric uses it for repetition at the head of a line, which is what makes I have a dream work as a drumbeat. Grammarians use it for reference backwards, the reason she in a sentence needs an antecedent. Eastern liturgy uses it for the eucharistic prayer itself, from the other sense of carrying up, the offering raised at the altar.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
metaphoreuphoriaphosphorusamphora
In a sentence
Churchill's fight on the beaches passage is anaphora doing all the work.