Epistrophe

Pronounced ih-PIS-truh-fee.

Epistrophe: Repeating the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences.

Epistrophe lands every clause on the same word, so the sentence keeps arriving at its own conclusion; orators use it to make one idea feel inescapable.

Epistrophe examples

• "...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

  — Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln

• "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child."

  — 1 Corinthians 13:11

• "They promised transparency. They audited transparency. They wrote seventeen memos about transparency."

  — original example

• "Shylock's 'let him look to his bond' returns at the end of clause after clause."

  — The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare

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