merism

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

  • noun Referring to something by its polar extremes.
  • noun Referring to something by a list of its parts.

Examples

  • Answer: God created the heavens and the earth (a merism for "everything") approximately four thousand years before the birth of Christ, conducting His creative work ex nihilo over a period of six days, as described in Genesis 1.

    CreationWiki - Recent changes [en]

Note

The word 'merism' comes from a Greek word meaning 'division'.