systole systole
 sis'-to-lee from Gk. syn, "together" and stellein, "to place"
contractio

To make short a naturally long vowel. A kind of metaplasm.
 
Examples
  In the following stanza, the rhyming words only do rhyme if the second word, "feel" has its vowel sound shortened to the equivalent of "fill":

Poor duck, by buckshot robbed of useful bill,
Poor hunter, maimed by sorrow he must feel.

Related Figures
 

 
  Sources: Susenbrotus (1540) 21-22; Sherry (1550) 27 ("sytole," "contractio"); Peacham (1577) E2v


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Gideon O. Burton, Brigham Young University
Please cite "Silva Rhetoricae" (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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