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Webster 1913 Edition
Metalepsis
‖
Metˊa-lep′sis
,Noun.
pl.
Metalepses
(#)
. [L., fr. Gr. [GREEK] participation, alteration, fr. [GREEK] to partake, to take in exchange; [GREEK] beyond + [GREEK] to take.]
(Rhet.)
The continuation of a trope in one word through a succession of significations, or the union of two or more tropes of a different kind in one word.
Webster 1828 Edition
Metalepsis
METALEP'SIS
,Noun.
In rhetoric, the continuation of a trope in one word through a succession of significations, or the union of two or more tropes of a different kind in one word, so that several gradations or intervening senses come between the word expressed and the thing intended by it; as 'in one Caesar there are many Mariuses.' Here Marius, by a synecdoche or antonomasy, is put for any ambitious, turbulent man, and this, by a metonymy of the cause, for the ill effects of such a temper to the public.