Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun Grammar, Rhetoric.
- the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way, as in to wage war and peace or On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold.
noun
- a figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words although appropriate to only one of them or making a different sense with each, as in the sentence Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave (Charles Dickens)
1580s, “a single word (usually a verb or adjective) made to refer to two or more words in a sentence,” from Greek, literally “a yoking,” from zeugnynai “to yoke” (see jugular).