Home › Glossary › Letter P

Polyptoton

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings

Detailed Definition
Polyptoton is a rhetorical figure involving the repetition of a word in different grammatical forms (e.g., noun, verb, adjective) within close proximity to emphasize semantic nuance or create rhythmic intensity; in poetry, this device deepens resonance by exploring a root concept through its inflections—as in Shakespeare’s “with eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder,” where “feeding” and “feeder” underscore the paradox of consumption and destruction.
Example
Example in poetry:
Polyptoton in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds”; Milton’s “Lycidas”: “Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise / …that last infirmity of noble mind”; Polyptoton in Gwendolyn Brooks: “We die soon. We are not done.”; Contemporary: “To grieve is to live. To live is to grieve.” – Ocean Vuong
Additional Notes
Repetition of words from the same root in different forms (e.g., "judge not, lest ye be judged"). Creates emphasis through grammatical variation. Related to ploce. Note the root word connections.
Other Meanings of “Polyptoton”
Also Known As
Same-root repetition Varied-form repeat Inflection play Case variation Cognate repetition Etymological figure Related-word scheme Repeated word different meaning
Skip to main content