Hendiadys
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A figure of speech used for emphasis, where two words joined by and are used to express a single complex idea. rhetoric
"Some examples of hendiadys comprise two words in the bound state; others, two words in appositional hendiadys. It would seem that certain cases of appositional hendiadys are closely related to wordpairs (see WORD-PAIRS, BREAK-UP), though which way the development proceeded is far from certain."
- 2 use of two conjoined nouns instead of a noun and modifier wordnet
Example
More examples"Some examples of hendiadys comprise two words in the bound state; others, two words in appositional hendiadys. It would seem that certain cases of appositional hendiadys are closely related to wordpairs (see WORD-PAIRS, BREAK-UP), though which way the development proceeded is far from certain."
Etymology
From Medieval Latin, from Ancient Greek ἕν (hén), stem of εἷς (heîs, “one”) + διά (diá, “through”) + δύο (dúo, “two”), “one [idea] through two [words]”.
Related phrases
More for "hendiadys"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.