Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The repetition of parts in an organism in such a way as to form a regular pattern, as in radial and bilateral symmetry, serial homology, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun literature, rhetoric Referring to something by its polar extremes.
  • noun literature, rhetoric Referring to something by a list of its parts.

Etymologies

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The word merism has been adopted in honor of Adrienne Rifkind.

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Examples

  • The error, mes - merism - or hypnotism, to use the recent term

    Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy 1865

  • Answer: God created the heavens and the earth (a merism for "everything") approximately four thousand years before the birth of Christ, conducting His creative work ex nihilo over a period of six days, as described in Genesis 1.

    CreationWiki - Recent changes [en] 2010

  • Diplophrasis My letter in the February 1976 VERBATIM, listing phrases in our language in which synonyms are joined by and (aches and pains, alas and alack, bits and pieces) and other examples of hendiadys and merism elicited many additions from readers.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol IV No 4 1977

Comments

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  • I’ve stalked them from dusk until dawn

    With middling success off and on:

    Some words to share rhythm

    And shape a merism;

    I’ve hunted them hither and yon.

    March 25, 2018