Rhopalic sentence

A rhopalic sentence is a sentence in which either

each word is one letter longer than the preceding word, e.g., ‘I do not much enjoy eating pickled beetroot’; or

each word is one syllable longer than the preceding word, e.g., ‘He always opposes unjustified deregulation.’

The adjective rhopalic comes from the Greek ῥοπαλικός (rhopalikos), an adjective formed from the noun ῥόπαλον (rhopalon, ‘cudgel’, ‘club’), and meaning ‘like a cudgel or club, i.e., thicker towards one end’. The ancient Greek adjective ῥοπαλικός (rhopalikos) and its Latin transliteration rhopalicus were used in the same way as their English descendant to describe a line of verse in which each word is one syllable longer than the preceding word. Servius (Marius Servius Honoratus, late 4th century, early 5th Century CE), the grammarian and author of a commentary on the works of Virgil, says in a treatise on the different poetic metres: Rhopalicus versus est, cum verba prout sequuntur, per syllabas crescunt‘ (‘A rhopalic line is when the words as they follow increase by syllables.’) (De centum metris, IX, s. 25).

For other types of ‘constrained writing’ see Pangram, Lipogram, snd Tautogram.

The noun rhopalium (plural rhopalia), which is used in the biological sciences, shares the etymology of the adjective rhopalic but has a very different meaning. Rhopalia are small sensory structures found in certain classes of jelly fish (Scyphozoa and Cubozoa): they are so called because in shape they resemble clubs or cudgels.