syncrisis

S1Y4N1C3R1I1S1I1S1

noun

A figure of speech in which opposite things, people etc. are compared.

Scrabble 14

Meanings

nounsyncrisis (plural syncrises)

plural syncrises

  1. rhetoricA figure of speech in which opposite things, people etc. are compared.

    Other aspects were also taken into consideration in the pansophic method, ensuing from the syncrisis of the general and particular.

    1984, Marie Kyralová, Symposium Comenianum 1982: The Impact of J.A. Comenius on Educational Thinking and Practice, page 19
    2 more examples

    Although it is tempting to look at colour in terms of each energia ^([sic]) in turn (what could be said about a chromatic analysis of anemographia? ) for our purposes here, we will continue to focus on the temporal and spatial planes that articulate the figural cadences created by syncrisis.

    2007, Wendy Ellen Everett, Questions of Colour in Cinema: From Paintbrush to Pixel, page 134

    Plutarch scholarship has long shown an intrest in syncrisis as described in the progymnasmata because of the convention's prominence in the Parallel Lives, which set individual Roman generals, politicians, etc., beside individual Greek generals, politicians, etc. in paired bioi, most of the pairs being followed by a formal, non-narrative comparison of the two figures.

    2010, Michael W. Martin, Judas and the Rhetoric of Comparison in the Fourth Gospel, page 32

Origin

  1. Ancient Greekσύν“with, together”
  2. Englishsyncrisis

From Ancient Greek σύν (sún, “with, together”) + κρίσις (krísis, “judge”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

syncrisis. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/syncrisis

MLA

“syncrisis.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/syncrisis. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “syncrisis,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/syncrisis.

Source: syncrisis on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.