You get a bonus - 1 coin for daily activity. Now you have 1 coin

Asyndeton (Omission of Conjunctions) as a Figure of Speech

Lecture



Omission of conjunctions, or asyndeton (Greek ἀσύνδετον, Latin dissolutio) — a stylistic figure: the construction of speech in which the conjunctions linking a sentence are omitted. It lends the utterance swiftness and dynamism, and helps convey a rapid succession of scenes, impressions, and actions.

Literary examples

Booths, women flash by,
Boys, shops, streetlamps,
Palaces, gardens, monasteries,
Bukharans, sledges, kitchen gardens,
Merchants, hovels, peasants,
Boulevards, towers, Cossacks,
Pharmacies, fashion shops,
Balconies, lions on gates
And flocks of jackdaws on crosses.

— A. S. Pushkin. Eugene Onegin. Chapter 7

Night, a street, a streetlamp, a pharmacy,
A meaningless and dim light.

— A. Blok. Night, Street, Streetlamp, Pharmacy

See also

Figures of Speech
Figures

Adynaton • Allusion • Amplification • Anadiplosis • Anacoluthon • Anaphora • Antithesis • Antitheton • Apocope • Apostrophe • Attraction • Asyndeton • Hyperbaton •Homeoteleuton • Gradation (Climax, Anticlimax) • Distinction • Zeugma • Isocolon • Nominative of theme • Inversion • Correction • Mesarchia •Polyptoton • Polysyndeton • Oxymoron • Parallelism • Paronomasia • Parcellation • Periphrasis • Pleonasm • Prolepsis • Retardation •Rhetorical question • Rhetorical exclamation • Rhetorical address • Symploce • Solecism • Tautology • Exact repetition • Aposiopesis • Chiasmus • Exergasia •Ellipsis • Emphasis • Epiphora

Tropes

Allegory • Antiphrasis • Asteism • Antonomasia • Hyperbole • Dysphemism • Irony • Wordplay • Catachresis • Litotes • Meiosis • Metaphor • Metonymy • Personification •Pathos • Periphrasis • Sarcasm • Synecdoche • Simile • Euphemism • Epithet

created: 2020-11-01
updated: 2026-03-09
184



Was this answer useful?
Choose a quick rating so we can improve the next answer for you.
How satisfied are you?


Comments

To leave a comment

If you have any suggestion, idea, thanks or comment, feel free to write. We really value feedback and are glad to hear your opinion.
To reply

Lectures and tutorial on "Rhetoric"

Terms: Rhetoric