Definition:
A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it. Considered by some to be a form of metonymy. Adjective: synecdochic or synecdochal.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "gathering together"Examples and Observations:
- "All hands on deck."
- "Take thy face hence."
(William Shakespeare, Macbeth V.iii) - "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") - "The daily press, the immediate media, is superb at synecdoche, at giving us a small thing that stands for a much larger thing."
(Bruce Jackson) - "Brazil won the soccer match."
- "And the Stratocaster guitars slung over
Burgermeister beer guts, and the swizzle stick legs
jackknifed over Naugahyde stools and the
witch hazel spread out over the linoleum floors,
the pedal pushers stretched out over midriff bulge
and the coiffed brunette curls over Maybelline eyes
wearing Prince Machiabelli, Estee Lauder, smells so sweet
I elbowed up at the counter with mixed feelings
over mixed drinks
and Bubba and the Roadmasters moaned in pool hall
concentration as they knit their brows to
cover the entire Hank Williams Song Book
and the old National register was singing to the tune of $57.57
until last call, one last game of eight ball."
(Tom Waits, "Putnam County") - "It's true that there's something sad about the fact that David Leavitt's short stories' sole description of some characters is that their T-shirts have certain brand names on them. . . . In our post-1950s, inseparable-from-TV association pool, brand loyalty really is synecdochic of character."
(David Foster Wallace, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction," The Review of Contemporary Fiction, 1993)
Pronunciation: si-NEK-di-key
Also Known As: intellectio, quick conceit
