Synecdoche
//sɪˈnɛk.də.ki// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A figure of speech that uses the name of a part of something to represent the whole, or the whole to represent a part, or a specific kind or instance to represent the general category, or the general category to represent a specific kind or instance, or the constituent material to represent the thing made from it. countable, rhetoric, uncountable
"Synecdoche the whole for part will take, Or part for whole, just for the metre's sake."
- 2 substituting a more inclusive term for a less inclusive one or vice versa wordnet
- 3 The use of this figure of speech. countable, rhetoric, uncountable
Example
More examples"Synecdoche the whole for part will take, Or part for whole, just for the metre's sake."
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin synecdochē, from Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ, “receiving together”) from σύν (sún, “with”) + ἐκ (ek, “out of”) + δέχεσθαι (dékhesthai, “to accept”), this last element related to δοκέω (dokéō, “to think, suppose, seem”).
Related phrases
More for "synecdoche"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.