| Figure Name | mesozeugma |
| Source | Silva Rhetoricae (http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Silva.htm); Mosellanus; Susenbrotus (1540); Peacham (1577); Puttenham (1589) ("mesozeugma," "middle marcher"); JG Smith (1665) ("mesozeugma") |
| Earliest Source | None |
| Synonyms | mezozeugma, middle marcher |
| Etymology | Gk. meso, "middle" and zeugma, "yoke" |
| Type | Scheme |
| Linguistic Domain |
Syntactic |
| Definition |
1. A zeugma in which one places a common verb for many subjects in the middle of a construction. (Silva Rhetoricae) 2. Mezozeugma the second kind [of zeugma], when the common word is put in the middle clause. (Peacham) 3. A joyning together in the middle: a figure when the common word being placed in the middle clause, knits together the precedent and subsequent words, &c. See this in Zeugma.; 2. Mesozeugma, when the common word is put in the middle clause. (JG Smith) |
| Example |
1. First the door locked, and then his jaw. (Silva Rhetoricae) 1. Neither his father nor his mother could persuade him; neither his friends nor his kinsmen. (Silva Rhetoricae) 2. What a shame is this, that neither hope of reward, nor feare of reproch could any thing move him, neither the perswasion of his friends, nor the love of his countrey. (Peacham) 3. What a shame is this, that neither hope of reward, nor fear of reproach could any thing move him, neither the perswasion of his friends, nor the love of his country! (JG Smith) |
| Kind Of | Omission Symmetry Series |
| Part Of | zeugma |
| Related Figures | syllepsis, ellipsis, parallelism, epizeugma, synzeugma, diazeugma, hypozeuxis, prozeugma, mesozeugma, hypozeugma, figures of omission |
| Notes | |
| Confidence | Unconfident |
| Last Editor | Nike Abbott |
| Confidence | Unconfident |
| Editorial Notes | |
| Reviewed | No |