synaloepha synaloepha
 sin-a-lif'-a from Gk. synaleiphein, "to smear or melt together"
Also sp. synalepha, synaloephe, synolephe
episynaloepha
deletio, delecio

Omitting one of two vowels which occur together at the end of one word and the beginning of another. A contraction of neighboring syllables. A kind of metaplasm.
 
Examples
  I'll take one; you take th'other.

When yond same star that's westward from the pole
Had made his course t'illume that part of heaven
—Shakespeare Hamlet 1.1.36-37

Related Figures
 

  • metaplasm
  • Figures of Omission
  • syncope
    Cutting letters or syllables from the middle of a word
  • ecthlipsis
    The omission or elision of letters or syllables (often the consonant "m" and the vowel that precedes it) for the sake of poetical meter.
See Also
 

 
  Sources: Isidore 1.35.5-6; Mosellanus ("synaloephe" "Deletio") a3v; Susenbrotus (1540) 22; Sherry (1550) 28 ("synolephe," "delecio"); Peacham (1577) E3r


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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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