Epistrophe is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences. It is the counterpart of anaphora, which repeats at the beginning.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child” uses epistrophe to drive the point home. Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, for the people” combines both devices. The repeated ending creates a sense of closure and cumulative force; each preceding variation is gathered up by the returning phrase.

Epistrophe works well in oratory and in prose that aspires to rhythmic power. It can feel heavy if overused, yet in the right context it gives a passage the authority of a refrain. Poets and speechwriters reach for it when they want the final word of each unit to ring like a bell.

When successive clauses land on the same closing words, the pattern is epistrophe.