n.
Pronunciation: s ə - ' lep-s ə s
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural -lep · ses \ - ˌ s ē z \
Etymology: Latin, from Greek syll ē psis, from syllambanein
Date: circa 1550
1 : the use of a word to modify or govern syntactically two or more words with only one of which it formally agrees in gender, number, or case
2 : the use of a word in the same grammatical relation to two adjacent words in the context with one literal and the other metaphorical in sense
– syl · lep · tic \ - ' lep-tik \ adjective