anastrophe
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of anastrophe
Explanation
When the words in a sentence or phrase are deliberately mixed up, it's called anastrophe. Using anastrophe can sometimes make speech sound more formal. One of the most well-known users of anastrophe is the Star Wars character Yoda, whose mixed-up word order makes him sound wise and vaguely like a non-native English speaker: "Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is." It was common to use anastrophe as a literary device in ancient Greek and Latin poetry, and the word itself is Greek, meaning "a turning back" or "a turning upside-down."
Vocabulary lists containing anastrophe
Rhetoric
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Rhetoric
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Some retellings of celebrated stories enact a kind of anastrophe on a higher level, lifting one author’s plot to another author’s purpose — and in the process reversing the polarity of the story.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 20, 2023
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
