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Word Unpacked.

anaphora

noun [əˈnæfɚə]
pronunciation CMUdict via pipeline/ipa-en.mjs (lemma anaphora present); confirm with a phonetician; no frequency figure, open source

Anaphora repeats the same word or group at successive clause openings; foil to epiphora (end echo) and to alliteration (sound at word starts).

source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Definitions

  1. ling. / rhet. / lit. Trope: the same word or phrase returns at successive clause, sentence, or line openings for clarity and rhythm. Axis: start of the member, not the end (epiphora) and not sound alone at word starts in a row (alliteration).
    source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
  2. hist. lex. Lexicon notes: Webster 1913 marks ANAPHORA under rhetoric, with EPANAPHORA as the same and EPIPHORA for end repetition; Arct 1921 keeps Anafora and Epanafora; Skeat 1910 has no anaphora lemma; Brückner 1927 has no anafora lemma.
    source Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ANAPHORA; EPANAPHORA; EPIPHORA); M. Arct 1921 (Anafora; Epanafora); W. W. Skeat 1910 (no anaphora); A. Brückner 1927 (no anafora), open source
  3. didact. / rhet. In teaching, anaphora sits beside epiphora, alliteration, antithesis, oxymoron, irony, hyperbole, and simile: epiphora closes a member with an echo, alliteration binds a row by shared initial sound, and this figure relaunches each next clause on the same word or phrase. Border scope needs review.
    source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
  4. colloq. Everyday talk may dump any echo under this tag. This entry holds one rhetorical axis: a chain of members that share an opening lexeme on purpose; foil to epiphora and foil to alliteration; not a casual synonym for repetition alone.
    source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Examples

Usage

Casual talk may stamp any echo as anaphora with no named axis. Seminar work peels layers: deliberate opening echo across a run of clauses; epiphora as foil (end echo); alliteration as foil (initial sound in a row); plus lexicon notes. Webster keeps ANAPHORA (Rhet.) and EPANAPHORA as the same, with EPIPHORA (Rhet.) for end repetition. Arct keeps Anafora and Epanafora. Skeat has no anaphora lemma. Brückner has no anafora lemma. Without those layers only an empty repetition slogan remains.

source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Open-book record. The 1913 Webster volume marks the noun ANAPHORA (Rhet.) with stress A*naph"o*ra, as a start-of-clause echo of a word or words across two or more successive clauses, from Latin via Greek (ana + pherein, to carry up or back); EPANAPHORA is the same; EPIPHORA (Rhet.) marks emphatic end echo across several sentences or stanzas. The 1921 Arct volume keeps Anafora and Epanafora; Skeat 1910 does not index anaphora; the 1927 Brückner volume does not index anafora. Facts here; derivation under etymology.

source Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (ANAPHORA; EPANAPHORA; EPIPHORA); M. Arct 1921 (Anafora; Epanafora); W. W. Skeat 1910 (no lemma); A. Brückner 1927 (no lemma), open source

Scholarly English marks opening repetition across members for clarity and rhythm. Careful editors discard worksheets that treat every epiphora as anaphora and discard glosses that never name the opening axis. The anaphora / epiphora / alliteration border stays debated in seminars. Chronology of the label stays blank until a primary source page is cited. Polish counterpart: anafora (SGJP present).

source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Classrooms revisit repetition talk in tropes and set anaphora against epiphora, alliteration, antithesis, oxymoron, irony, euphemism, hyperbole, litotes, simile, metaphor, allegory, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, rhetoric, and semantics. CMUdict has the anaphora lemma (pipeline IPA). Polish anafora sits in SGJP. Live neighbours include those tropes. Without the opening-repetition axis the label collapses.

source Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ANAPHORA); CMUdict (anaphora present); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (anafora present), open source

Word forms

Countable noun: singular anaphora / plural anaphoras (editorial regular plural; Webster indexes the singular under ANAPHORA). Related form in Webster: epanaphora (same as anaphora). CMUdict lemma present.

forms in use

przypadek forma
singular anaphora
plural anaphoras (editorial regular plural)
related synonym (Webster) epanaphora (Webster EPANAPHORA = Anaphora)
foil neighbour (Webster) epiphora (Webster EPIPHORA Rhet.: end repetition)

Word forms: Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ANAPHORA; EPANAPHORA; EPIPHORA); CMUdict (anaphora present) · source

Collocations

Synonyms · Antonyms

Synonyms anafora (Polish counterpart; SGJP present; Arct Anafora; check scope at review), epanaphora (Webster EPANAPHORA = Anaphora; Arct Epanafora; check scope at review), opening repetition (loose descriptive neighbour; check scope at review), rhetorical echo at starts (approximation; Webster ANAPHORA Rhet.; check scope at review)
source Editorial team; facts: SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (anafora present); M. Arct 1921 (Anafora), open source
Antonyms literal narration without opening repetition (contrast: no return of the word at starts; check scope at review), epiphora (place contrast: end repetition, not opening; Webster EPIPHORA Rhet.; not a clean antonym of the label alone), alliteration (axis contrast: sound at word starts in a row, not the same word at clause starts; check at review)
source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Etymology

English anaphora rests on Webster's ANAPHORA card: Latin from Greek (prefix ana with the verb pherein, literally a carrying back), marked (Rhet.) for a start-of-clause echo across two or more successive clauses; EPANAPHORA is listed as the same; EPIPHORA (Rhet.) marks end echo. Skeat 1910 does not index anaphora. Arct 1921 keeps Anafora and Epanafora for Polish anafora. Brückner 1927 does not index anafora. We avoid copying dictionary wording. Polish counterpart: anafora.
source Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (ANAPHORA; EPANAPHORA; EPIPHORA), open source
also M. Arct, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921 (Anafora; Epanafora), open source
also W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910 (no anaphora lemma), open source
also A. Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, Kraków 1927 (no anafora lemma), open source

Related words

Related entries

The same entry in Polish: anafora

Questions and answers

What does anaphora mean?

The word names a figure built on a shared opening lexeme across a run of clauses. Epiphora ends the member with an echo. Alliteration ties neighbouring words by the same first sound. Casual repetition without a figure is not the same axis.

source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

How does anaphora differ from epiphora?

Anaphora keeps one lexeme at the head of each clause in a chain. Epiphora (Webster EPIPHORA Rhet.) closes several sentences or stanzas with an end echo. Casual speech blurs them often; the place axis of the echo differs clearly in seminars.

source Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ANAPHORA; EPIPHORA), open source

How does anaphora differ from alliteration?

Under anaphora the shared lexeme sits at clause openings. Alliteration binds a row of words by shared initial sound. That is the axis foil: lexeme versus sound, not a synonym of the label alone.

source Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Where does the word anaphora come from, and what forms sit with it?

Webster 1913 ties ANAPHORA to Latin from Greek (ana + pherein) under rhetoric; EPANAPHORA is the same; EPIPHORA marks end repetition. Skeat 1910: no lemma. Arct 1921: Anafora; Epanafora. Brückner 1927: no lemma. Forms: anaphora / anaphoras (editorial). IPA from CMU: /əˈnæfɚə/. Polish pair: anafora (SGJP present).

source Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913; CMUdict (anaphora present); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (anafora present), open source