Words & WritingGreek → English
Epistrophe
/ɪˈpɪstrəfi/noun
The rhetorical figure of ending successive clauses or sentences with the same word or phrase.
The Greek roots
ἐπί
epí
upon, back
στροφή
strophḗ
a turning
Literally: “a turning back upon”
The story of the word
Greek rhetoricians named it for the turn a chorus made in the orchestra, the same στροφή behind strophe and catastrophe. Lincoln closed at Gettysburg with government of the people, by the people, for the people, which is epistrophe doing its work. Its mirror image, repeating the opening word instead, is anaphora.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
strophecatastropheapostropheboustrophedon
In a sentence
The speech leans hard on epistrophe: every paragraph lands on the same three words.
Her tutor marked the epistrophe in the margin and wrote deliberate, keep it.