Quora Answer: What is It When a Word is Repeated Thrice?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What is it called when a word is repeated three times, like “yada, yada, yada”, or “blah, blah, blah”?”

When a word is mentioned three times, it is a triad.  There are a series of rhetorical devices, depending on the nature of the word, how it sounds, and how it is enunciated.

If that word is repeated exactly, even with a slight change in emphasis in enunciation, it is known as a reduplication.  If the repeated words are variations of each other around the same general meaning, it may be a form of emphasis known as an epizeuxis, or even an amplification, where the next word has a stronger meaning than the last.

If the words begin with the same phoneme or sound, then it is a form of alliteration known as an alliterative triad.  If the word is something such as “blah, blah, blah”, which is not a real word, it is known as an onomatopoeia, which may be reduplicative, or epizuxian.