ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

AT-HAR6-0015 · ATLAS 260

Systrophe

Listing many qualities without stating an explicit definition.

Part of the subject path Rhetoric and Style

Why is this entry in the Atlas?

F · Figure / procedure R1 · Distinct contribution to understanding

Systrophe explains how accumulated attributes make an object recognisable while withholding an explicit defining formula. An explicit definition supplies a delimiting formula that this accumulation of attributes withholds.

Colours and admission grounds

The rectangular label identifies the entry function: F – linguistic figure or procedure; A – analytical concept; G – foundational concept; E – selected concrete case. The rounded badge indicates the admission ground: R1 – distinctive contribution; R2 – necessary foundation; R3 – justified illustrative case. This editorial rationale explains the current selection rather than claiming an undocumented original selection history.

Explanation

Systrophe accumulates numerous qualities, images, or circumlocutions around an object without fixing it in a final definition. The object gains contour through movement among perspectives; no single attribution claims to exhaust it. This can preserve complexity, create emotional density, or suggestively compose an identity. Accumulation may also substitute for evidence and gather contradictory attributes under one name. Analysis inventories predicates, groups their perspectives, and tests which features are observed, evaluated, inherited, or metaphorically imposed and what image their combined effect produces.

Movement of thought

1. The designated object is analytically separated from every accumulated quality. 2. Each attribution is classified as observation, evaluation, image, relation, or inherited formula. 3. Clusters, repetitions, and tensions reveal dominant or conflicting perspectives. 4. Central features are tested for evidence, situational dependence, or purely suggestive force. 5. A concise definitional trial exposes what open accumulation gains or deliberately leaves indeterminate.

Scientific use case

Rhetoric, literary studies, discourse analysis, and identity research examine systrophe through attribute clusters, evaluation, and perspectival plurality. Corpus comparison can trace how people, places, or institutions are constructed by recurring fields of description.

Example

A speech calls a city “harbour and refuge, defiant and hospitable, marked by wind, driven by trade, dense with memory and always under reconstruction,” without offering one formula of essence.

Counterexample

A factual feature list or complete dictionary definition is not systrophe. Qualities must be rhetorically accumulated around an object without closing it in one explicit definition.

Distinction

Distinguish systrophe from enumeratio, congeries, definitio, and epithet. Systrophe circles an object through many qualities without explicit definition; an epithet usually attaches one characterising addition.

Effect on thought and perception

Systrophe produces a dense, many-sided image and can resist definitional narrowing. It may also overwhelm by quantity and suggest a coherent essence that its individual attributes do not establish.

Resonance

Many attributions meet the same object and make a different side of it sound each time. Its shape emerges within their overlapping field rather than in one final formula.

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Systrophe“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-HAR6-0015. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HAR6-0015

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-HAR6-0015

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Historical background

Peacham’s 1593 treatment calls systrophe an accumulation of descriptions or definitions that do not follow the strict logical pattern of genus and difference. Several characterisations surround a subject, making its significance available through different aspects. This matters for the present Atlas definition, which says the figure avoids an explicit definition: the historical author does use the word definitions, but distinguishes rhetorical characterisation from a formal delimitation of essence. There is no contradiction once the two senses of definition are separated. The figure’s movement is cumulative rather than exhaustive; a rich cluster of images need not provide necessary and sufficient conditions for identifying the subject. Peacham associates it with praise and blame and warns against excessive accumulation. The Atlas should therefore ask which aspects the series selects and which it excludes. This is a documented English rhetorical treatment, while the earlier borrowing of the learned name and later classification history remain uncompleted.

How conceptual history changes the analysis

Systrophe accumulates characterising descriptions without necessarily giving a logical definition; selection and accumulation shape its evaluative effect.

References for the historical section

  • Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence (1593), Perseus transcription · Schemates Rhetorical: Systrophe, including use and caution where present

    The relevant transcription was read; it has not been collated against a 1593 page image. This dates a documented witness, not the first coinage. Historical moral, social and religious judgements are attributed to Peacham, not adopted as current knowledge.

Historical source evidence and Atlas applications remain separate; this import does not assert new first attestations or a fresh exhaustive source verification.