Polyptoton Examples

Polyptoton is the term to refer to the repetition of the same root word with various endings.

From the Les Miserables song "I Dreamed a Dream"

I dreamed a dream of days gone by.

When hope was high

And life worth living.

From Shakespeare's Sonnet 116:

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

From the Christmas song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch":

Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch, The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote, "Stink, stank, stunk"!

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."