A literary device whereby a single word is used in multiple senses in a sentence.
Zeugma, borrowed from the ancient Greek ζεῦγμα ("yoking"), is a literary device in which a single word is paired with other words in a sentence but in a different sense with each. For example, a zeugma in Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock is commonly cited:
"Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey,
Dost sometimes Counsel take – and sometimes Tea."
To take counsel and take tea are both grammatically and semantically sound, but use different senses of the word take. This can be interpreted as a case of parallelism. When a word is repeated with different meanings rather than paired, the device is known as antanaclasis.
The linguistic definition of zeugma refers to the pairing of a word with other words even though it logically or grammatically applies only to one, as in Tennyson's
He works his work, I mine.
This type is also known as syllepsis. Authorities vary on how zeugma and syllepsis differ, with considerable overlap in how the terms are applied.
