Words & WritingGreek → English
Polysyndeton
/ˌpɒlɪˈsɪndɪtɒn/noun
The deliberate piling up of conjunctions between clauses, as in "and the rain and the wind and the cold".
The Greek roots
πολύς
polýs
many
σύνδετος
sýndetos
bound together
Literally: “much bound together”
The story of the word
Greek rhetoricians catalogued the device alongside its opposite, asyndeton, which strips conjunctions out entirely. The σύν-δετος half means literally tied together with, from δεῖν, to bind. Hemingway and the King James translators both leaned on it, which is why the effect sounds at once breathless and biblical.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
asyndetonsyndesmosissyndetic
In a sentence
The sentence runs on through five ands, a polysyndeton that refuses to let the reader stop for breath.