[mod.L., a. Gr. ἐπιστροφή, f. ἐπί upon + στροφή a turning, f. στρέφειν to turn.]
1. Rhet. A figure of speech in which each sentence or clause ends with the same word.
1647. Sprigge, Anglia Rediv. (1854), Addr. p. viii. Feigned speeches, prosopopeias and epistrophes.
a. 1679. Hobbes, Rhet., IV. v. 149. Repetition of the same sound in the end is called Epistrophe, a turning to the same sound in the end.
1706. A. Bedford, Temple Mus., v. 95. Epistrophe’s, or Endings of the Verses in the same Words.
1845. J. W. Gibbs, Philol. Studies (1857), 207. Epistrophe … is the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses; as, ‘we are born to sorrow, pass our time in sorrow, end our days in sorrow.’
2. Philos. (See quot.)
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (ed. 4), I. 90–1. That doctrine of the Epistrophe—the return of all intelligence by a law of nature to the divine centre.
3. Bot. (See quot.)
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 750. In one mode, which he calls Epistrophe, the protoplasm and chlorophyll-granules collect on the free cell-walls.
Epistrophy Bot. = EPISTROPHE 3.
