| Figure Name | diacope |
| Source | Silva Rhetoricae (http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Silva.htm); Peacham (1593); Puttenham (1589) ("ploche," "the doubler"); Macbeth (1876) |
| Earliest Source | None |
| Synonyms | the doubler, cutting |
| Etymology | Gk. diakopto, "to cut in two, cut through" |
| Type | Scheme |
| Linguistic Domain |
Lexicographic |
| Definition |
1. Repetition of a word with one or more between, usually to express deep feeling. (Silva Rhetoricae) 2. Diacope is a figure which repeateth a word putting but one word betweene, or at least verie few. 3. Tmesis, Diacope, or Cutting, let us next illustrate, lead to it by the last example, each part split off being a complete word; as "to us ward" for toward us. (Macbeth) |
| Example |
1. All lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost! (Silva Rhetoricae) 2. I will now frame my song of Jove, how Jove hath dealt with me. (Peacham) 2. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed. (David in Psal.57 qtd. in Peacham) 3. In a renowned passage of the Rev. Richard Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity," in defence of the Church of England, a cutting occurs in the expression "what condition soever:" "Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage: the least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and creatures of what condition soever, each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." (Macbeth) |
| Kind Of | Repetition Symmetry |
| Part Of | ploche |
| Related Figures | polysyndeton, figures of pathos, figures of repetition, tmesis, figures of etymology |
| Notes | Peacham argues that there are two ways in which this figure may fail: by content or by form. Peacham writes: "The repetition of a wanton or idle word is a vice to be shunned in this figure, which is a fault (I confesse) in the matter and not in the forme, but the faults in the forme are either in the word repeated or in the interposition: in the word repeated, when it is too short, as to say, O sicke and very sicke, O sicke and like to die." |
| Confidence | Unconfident |
| Last Editor | Samantha Price |
| Confidence | Unconfident |
| Editorial Notes | SR lists the synonym as "the doubler" (I corrected the entry here to reflect that). The synonym for ploce is "diaphora doubler". Also, the db will disambiguate between the two. -ark Shares a synonym (doubler) with ploce, but with clearly different definition. Perhaps a deparate entry for 'doubler' should be created to disambiguate. |
| Reviewed | No |