Mēt'a-lĕp'sis, n.

n.; pl. MĒT'A-LĒP'SĒS. [Lat. metalepsis, Gr. μετάληψις, participation, alteration; from μεταλαμβάνειν, to partake, to take in exchange, from μετά, beyond, after, and λαμβάνειν, to take; Fr. métalepse.] (Rhet.) The continuation of a trope in one word through a succession of significations, or the union of two or more tropes of a different kind in one word, so that several gradations or intervening senses come between the word expressed and the thing intended by it; as, “In one Cæsar there are many Mariuses.” Here Marius, by a synecdoche or antonomasia, is put for any ambitious, turbulent man, and this, by a metonymy of the cause, for the ill effects of such a temper to the public.