Polyptoton

Look up polyptoton in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Polyptoton is the stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated (e.g. "strong" and "strength"). A related stylistic device is antanaclasis, in which the same word is repeated, but each time with a different sense. In inflected languages polyptoton is the same word being repeated but appearing each time in a different case. (e.g. "Iuppiter," "Iovis," "Iovi," "Iovem," "Iove" [in Latin being the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative forms of Iuppiter, respectively]).

Examples

• "The Greeks are strong, and skillful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;" William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida I, i, 7-8
• "With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder." William Shakespeare Richard II II,i,37
• "Not as a call to battle, though embattled we are." John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
• "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, March 1933
• "Thou art of blood, joy not to make things bleed." Sir Philip Sidney
• "We have been...treading trodden trails for a long, long time." Dave Matthews Band, "So Much to Say", 1996
• "Working hard or hardly working?" (author unknown)
• "Say no to no." (author unknown)
• "Who shall stand guard to the guards themselves (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)?" Juvenal
• "Diamond me no diamonds, prize me no prizes..." Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine

References

• Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.

See also

• Antanaclasis
• Cognate object
• Figure of speech
• Rhetoric