Literature by Play Ukraine
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Tropes & Figures

Zeugma

Zeugma is a stylistic figure in which one word (most often a verb or adjective) is syntactically joined to several others, to each of which it relates in a different — now direct, now figurative — meaning: "He held in his hands an umbrella and a good mood." The non-coincidence of meanings generates an unexpected, often comic or ironic effect, since one shared word suddenly "turns" different facets of sense. Zeugma demonstrates economy of linguistic means and at the same time a play on polysemy, demanding of the reader attention to semantic transitions. This figure is characteristic of humour, satire and witty aphoristic speech. Zeugma belongs to the means of expressive syntax built on the violation of the homogeneity of a word's semantic connections.

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