syncrisis

9.9

To compare two things and show their differences

noun
/sɪnˈkraɪsɪs/

Literature

: sincrisis

In her speech, the politician used syncrisis to compare the prosperity of the city with the struggles of its impoverished neighborhoods, emphasizing their stark differences.

Examples

I have designed several questions for "The Paradise of Bachelors" to show students how Melville uses particular devices as part of his satirical and contrastive (juxtapositional) techniques: syncrisis, bathos, zeugma.

Academic text (1997)
At the same time, the assignment requires students to consider some idiosyncratic features of Edwards's style: his use of metaphors, antithesis, certain types of rhetorical questions, redundancy, syncrisis, and enargia.

Academic text (1997)
The essay demonstrated syncrisis by contrasting the optimistic views of the future with the pessimistic outlooks of contemporary critics, making the argument more compelling.
The author employed syncrisis effectively, showing how the tensions between tradition and modernity could lead to both conflict and growth.

Synonyms

contrast

vssyncrisis

1 3.4

The act of showing how two or more things are different

is a formal rhetorical technique comparing pairs to emphasise their differences

Antonyms

synthesis

17 6.2

Combining different ideas to form one whole

Surface Forms

syncrisis singular

syncrises plural

Morphology

syncrisis = crisis (opaque) = syn + crisis

Although formed from Greek syn- + krisis, the modern English components do not transparently yield the meaning 'comparison/contrast' (English 'crisis' means emergency), so learners cannot reliably derive the sense.

Etymology

The word syncrisis comes from Greek parts syn- meaning 'together', like in synchronize, and -crisis meaning 'decision' or 'choice'. So, a syncrisis puts two things side by side to compare them and show their differences.