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AMPHIBOLOGY

Volume 2 · 118 words · 1823 Edition

in Grammar and Rhetoric, a term used to denote a phrase susceptible of two different interpretations. Amphibology arises from the order of the phrase, rather than from the ambiguous meaning of a word.

Of this kind was that answer which Pyrrhus received from the oracle: Ἀν τε ἐκαίδη, Ῥωμαῖος νικήσει ποσε; where the amphibology consists in this, that the words τε and Ῥωμαῖος, may either of them precede, or either of them follow, the words ποσε νικήσει, indifferently. See Oracle.

The English language usually speaks in a more natural manner, and is not capable of any amphibologies of this kind: nor is it so liable to amphibologies in the articles as the French and most other modern tongues.