Figura etymologica is a
rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...
al
figure in which words with the same
etymological
Etymology () The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words a ...
derivation are used in the same passage.
To count as a figura etymologica, it is necessary that the two words be genuinely different words and not just different inflections of the same word. For example, the sentence ''Once I loved, but I love no more'' is not a figura etymologica since although ''love'' and ''loved'' are obviously etymologically related, they are really just inflections of the same word.
Examples in modern English are the phrases "
might and main" (both of which are derived from the
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...
root ''
megʰ-'') and "
chai tea", in which both come from words for tea (''cha'' and ''te'') in different
Chinese dialects
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...
.
The figura etymologica has both a narrower and a broader definition. In the narrower definition, it is restricted to the use of the accusative with cognate verbs (for example, ''live a good life'', ''sing a long song'', ''die a quiet death''). In the Western medieval tradition, it is often expressed in phrases like ''to sail a sailing'', ''to run a running'', or even ''to propose a proposal''. In modern linguistics, this same construction goes by the name of "
cognate object construction" (COC).
In the broader definition, the figura etymologica refers to just about any sort of repetition of cognate words relatively close to each other.
See also
*
Polyptoton
Polyptoton is the stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated (such as "strong" and "strength"). A related stylistic device is antanaclasis, in which the same word is repeated, but each time with a different sense. An ...
References
* Clary, Todd C. ''Solemnity, Banality and Sarcasm: Provenances of the Figura Etymologica in Homer,'' Cornell University
abstract
* Clary, Todd C. "Restrictions on the Figura Etymologica in Archaic Greek epic" Cornell Universit
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Rhetorical techniques