1894 W. Bateson Materials Study Variation 20 This phenomenon of Repetition of Parts..comes near to being a universal character of the bodies of living things. It will..be..convenient to employ a single term to denote this phenomenon... For this purpose the term Merism will be used.

1909 R. H. Lock Variation, Hered. & Evol. (ed. 2) v. 129 To this phenomenon of the repetition of parts, generally occurring in such a way as to produce a symmetry or pattern, the term merism is applied.

1934 Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Merism, Biol. A repetition of homologous parts.

1967 Jrnl. Dental Res. 46 845 This phenomenon of structural repetition he [sc. Bateson] called ‘merism’, and he described some of the properties of meristic series.

1988 Bot. Jrnl. Linn. Soc. 98 3 Within a given flower, the merism is consistent throughout the different floral elements.

1934 Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Merism, Rhet. A form of synecdoche in which a totality is expressed by two contrasting parts (old and young; thick and thin; near and far).

1971 MLN 86 261 The humor..centers primarily around the paradoxical combination bienes-males, at first glance a contrast of extremes..at second glance a merism, [etc.].

1974 Amer. Speech 49 302 Merisms might be further classified according to the totalities they express, whether of circumstance (rain or shine), distance (far and near),..or whatever.