Synecdoche

Examples Help! What is the definition of Synecdoche?

How do you define Synecdoche? What is a Synecdoche? The word derives from the Greek, sun with, and ekdexesthai meaning to receive. Plural: Synecdoches. The definition of Synecdoche is as follows:

 

English Grammar & Terminology Definition of Synecdoche - a poetic device
Definition: A figure of speech which expresses either more, or less, than it literally denotes.
When a whole is used as the part or a part of a thing is put for the whole

Example: "The world treated him badly."
The whole world did not treat him badly only a part. - The whole is used as the part

Example: "Twenty sails came into the harbor."
Meaning twenty ships came into the harbor. - A part is used for the whole

Definition of Synecdoche - a poetic device
 

Examples of Synecdoche in Poems & Poetry
Poems with Synecdoche examples can be found by the most famous poets including Shakespeare, Swift and Frost:

  • "Friends, Romans, countrymen: lend me your ears" probably the most famous example of synecdoche by William Shakespeare

  • "Prepar'd to scrub the entry and the stairs.
    The youth with broomy stumps began to trace"
    From 'A Description of the Morning' by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) where the the stump of the broom's straw stands in for the whole of the broom.

  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost where the journey through woods and forests  in the poem represent life's journey.

  • Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them.
    From "Ozymandias" by Shelley

  • Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6

  • I should have been a pair of ragged claws
    Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
    T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot
     

Examples of Synecdoche Poems

Examples Help! Use of Synecdoche in Poems & Poetry
Examples of Synecdoche can be found in many examples of the poem, poems or poetry. Famous poets use this figure of speech to convey and emphasize unusual and vivid images. The use of strong word association changes the mode of thought and adds variation, embellishment and adornment to literary works.
 

Examples Help - Figures of Speech - Synecdoche

In Figurative Language we use words in such a way that they differ somewhat from ordinary every-day speech and convey meanings in a more vivid and impressive manner. Figures, like Synecdoche make speech more effective, they beautify and emphasize it in Rhetoric which is the art of speaking and writing effectively. Figures of speech such as Synecdoche use word association to convey emotion and mood often in a non-literal sense.

Examples Help! Using Synecdoche

Figures of speech such as Synecdoche adds adornment, beautifies, colors, elegant variation, embellishment, embroidery, emphasis, exaggeration, exclamation, flourish, floweriness, irony, lushness and luxuriance to the English language. This page providing facts and info about Figures of Speech will help with the understanding of this subject.

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  • Poem, Poems & Poetry - Synecdoche

  • Word association to convey emotion and mood.

  • Definition, sample and example - poetic device

  • Figure of Speech in English Grammar

  • Definitions, info, samples and examples of different English Figurative Language

  • Synecdoche - figure, image, trope

  • Word association to convey emotion and mood.

  • Definition, info, sample and example - figure, image, trope - Poetic device

  • Poem, Poems & Poetry - poetic device

  • Examples Help!

Synecdoche

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