epistrophic

English

Adjective

epistrophic (comparative more epistrophic, superlative most epistrophic)

(anatomy) Pertaining to the epistropheus.
- 1914, Human Anatomy: A Complete Systematic Treatise, page 215:
  The union of the atlas and epistropheus is described in this section because (1) there is often a direct communication between the synovial cavity of the transverse epistropic and the occipito-atlantal joints; (2) the rotatory movements of the head take place around the dens (odontoid process); and (3) important ligaments from the dens pass over the atlas to the occiput.
(botany) Pertaining to the arrangement of chlorophyll along the outer surface of a plant (in epistrophe), as opposed to an arrangement at right angles to the surface (in apostrophe).
- 1886, A. F. W. Schimper, “Chlorophyll-grains and Chromatophores”, in Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, page 642:
  The apostrophic or epistrophic arrangement is the result of complicated laws dependent on the action of light; very strong irritation of light causes the chlorophyll-grains to collect into one or two lumps, a phenomenon for which Schimper proposes the term systrophe.
- 1888, The Journal of the Linnean Society: Botany, page 356:
  The accompanying diagram shows all the information I have been able to collect regarding the plant's epistrophic interval.
- 1897, Charles Benedict Davenport, Experimental Morphology - Part 1, page 190:
  The epistropic interval varies in position and in extent in different species.
(rhetoric) Pertaining to epistrophe (the repetition of words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences)
- 2017, Jennifer Sclafani, Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style:
  Trump's stock phrase "believe me" might be considered one example of a larger pattern in his rhetoric, which I refer to as epistrophic punctuation, or the repetition of short phrases, often ones that convey an affective or epistemic stance, that appear at the end of rhetorical units in his speeches.
- 2020, Adam Ellwanger, Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self, page 112:
  Epistrophic conversion provides a model much better suited to the demands of the modern politics of the self because it is always framed as a revelatory embrace of a preexisting self.
- 2024, Michał Mokrzan, Culture Figures: A Rhetorical Reading of Anthropology:
  The epistrophic part of the essay can be read as a philippic against modernism.

Derived terms

atlantoepistrophic