Merism (Latin: merismus, Ancient Greek: μερισμός, romanized: merismós) also known as merismus is a rhetorical device (or figure of speech) in which a combination of two contrasting parts of the whole refer to the whole.: 10 For example, in order to say that someone "searched everywhere," one could use the merism "searched high and low."
The term entered English in 1894 in the biological sense but had appeared earlier in rhetorical contexts in which it denoted "'synecdoche in which totality is expressed by contrasting parts' (such as high and low, young and old)." It derives from Modern Latin merismus, from Greek μερισμός (merismos) 'a dividing or partitioning,' ultimately from merizein 'to divide', from meros 'part, share'.
Most broadly, some, such as Richard Lanham, define a merism as a distribution in which one thing is split into more; this is device is instead sometimes referred to as a distribution, distributio, or the distributor. An example of this definition is found in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene:
Specifying this definition, others, such as George Puttenham, define it as distributing every part of something, especially for the sake of amplification.: 28 Puttenham provides the example of describing each part of a house— the walls, the roof, the floor— being torn down instead of just stating that the house was extirpated; he goes on to quote the following Petrarchan sonnet by Henry Howard (though Puttenham attributes it to Thomas Wyatt):
Which Puttenham argues could have been said in two verses:
A merism can also be defined as an inclusive spectrum defined by some of its parts. For example, to search "high and low" is to search medium elevations as well as the extremes. Some definitions specifies that a merism must contain only two contrasting elements; a merism with this definition is sometimes referred to as a universalizing doublet. One should establish, however, that a merism must contain at least two elements, as it is distinct from a synecdoche (or specifically a pars pro toto) which uses a singular term to refer to the whole.
Merisms are especially common in the bible, particularly the Old Testament:: 10
In some cases, whether a statement is meristic can be debated. For example, Genesis 1:27— "so God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them—" the text may refer to strictly "male" and "female" or refer to a broader spectrum inclusive of intersex individuals.
In biology, a merism is a repetition of similar parts in the structure of an organism. Such features are called meristic characters, and the study of such characters is called meristics. An example is in flowers in considering the number of parts in each whorl of organs from which they are constructed.: 30–31
 | This section may contain original research. (July 2020) |
Merisms frequently figure in the writing of lawyers and are a hallmark of legal style. The two parts of the legal merism "Last Will and Testament" at one time referred to two documents, which were enforced in two separate courts. The will disposed of a decedent's real property, and the testament disposed of chattels. It became customary to combine the instruments in a single dispositive document, and the name has continued long after the doctrines that had required its use became obsolete in common law.[citation needed]
A lawyer who writes a will typically includes a residuary clause that disposes of any property not covered by a prior section. The weight of tradition is such that the lawyer writing such a document will often phrase it something like this:[citation needed]
I bequeath, convey, and devise the rest, residue, and remainder of my property, whether real or personal, and wheresoever it may be situated, to...
Traditionally, a gift of real property was called a "devise", and a gift of other property was a "bequest". Nowadays, the words "bequeath" and "devise" are synonymous in most jurisdictions and so "I bequeath the rest of my property to..." is enough in both law and logic to achieve the same result. Many deeds frequently contain a traditional clause that says that the grantee is "to have and to hold" the property conveyed. That usage goes back to the days in which the instruments were drawn up in Latin, and is sometimes called a "habendam et tenendam" clause. The use of legal merisms seldom, if ever, adds legal effect to the documents that contain them, but it frequently increases their reading difficulty. However, the weight of tradition and the fear of a deviation from the established formula having unintended legal consequences make lawyers reluctant to revise the traditional formulae, and their clients, seeing them, at least draw the satisfaction of knowing that their documents appear to be written by a lawyer.[citation needed]
In some cases, the doubling (or even tripling) of constituent parts in the meristic constructions arose as a result of the transition of legal discourse from Latin to French and then from French to English. During such periods, key terms were paired with synonyms from multiple languages in an attempt to prevent ambiguity and ensure hermeneutic consistency.: 164–65
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