Word.ws English Dictionary

epistrophes

epistrophes is the plural of epistrophe.

Meaning of epistrophe

Noun

epistrophe (countable and uncountable, plural epistrophes)

  1. (rhetoric) The repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.
    • Epistrophe many sentences will close
      With the same word, in verse as well as prose.1835, L[arret] Langley, “[Rhetorical Turns.] Epistrophe.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 75
    Antonyms:
    anaphora
  2. An arrangement of chlorophyll grains on the outer surface of plant cells, as opposed to apostrophe (an arrangement at right angles to the surface).
    • As is well known, chloroplast in the epistrophe position presents an oval or more or less circular form; in the apostrophe position a flattened and lenticular form.1905 September 8, Harold Wager, “On Some Problems of Cell Structure and Physiology”, in English Mechanics and the World of Science, volume 82, number 2111, page 105

Questions about epistrophes

What is epistrophes the plural of?
Epistrophes is the plural of epistrophe.

Words near epistrophes in the dictionary

  1. epistopic
  2. epistopics
  3. epistratum
  4. epistrophe
  5. epistropheal
  6. epistrophes
  7. epistropheus
  8. epistrophic
  9. epistrophies
  10. epistrophy
  11. epistylar

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: epistrophes (page history and authors); epistrophe (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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