WORD OF THE DAY: ZEUGMA
noun | ZOOG-muh
Zeugma refers to wordplay in which a single word relates to other words in such a way that it means something different in each case, as in “building a boat and a reputation” and “open a book along with your mind.”
// A clever use of zeugma was demonstrated by Groucho Marx’s character Rufus T. Firefly in Duck Soup (1933): “You can leave in a taxi. If you can’t get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that’s too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.”
EXAMPLES OF ZEUGMA
“… in an evocative use of zeugma—my favorite literary device … [Oyinkan] Braithwaite writes, ‘The old house and everyone in it was falling apart.’” — Hudson Warm, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2 Nov. 2025
DID YOU KNOW?
“Zeugma, like the pun, is economical: it contracts two sentences into one . . .; it links unrelated terms—mental with moral, abstract with physical, high with low—and thus generates surprise,” wrote Walter Redfern in Puns (1984). Zeugma, which has been a part of the English language since the 15th century, comes from Greek, where it literally means “joining.” But even those who are unfamiliar with the word are likely well acquainted with the clever wordplay to which it refers—zeugma is a beloved device of lyricists, probably for the economy noted by Redfern. Notable examples come from Alanis Morissette (“You held your breath and the door for me”), Taylor Swift (“The wine is cold like the shoulder that I gave you”), and the Beatles (“Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name”).
Merriam Webster Dictionary
