Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In ethnology, the belief that part of an object or of a person is representative of the whole object or person, so that an act performed on the part has the same influence as the same act performed on the whole. Witchcraft by means of hair or parings of nails of the victim is an example of synecdochism.
Etymologies
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Examples
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With this clue we recognise that the big pink splodge that occupies the rest of the paper must be Venus - Twombly's inept attempt to paint a recumbent nude; if, however, we read the breasts as heads, the splodge could equally well be interpreted as the lovers sexually engaged, the detached penis now a superfluous synecdochism.
Evening Standard - Home Brian Sewell 2011
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With this clue we recognise that the big pink splodge that occupies the rest of the paper must be Venus - Twombly's inept attempt to paint a recumbent nude; if, however, we read the breasts as heads, the splodge could equally well be interpreted as the lovers sexually engaged, the detached penis now a superfluous synecdochism.
Evening Standard - Home Brian Sewell 2011
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