anastrophe

Definition

Unusual word order, often involving an inversion of the usual pattern of the sentence.

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀναστροφή (anastrophḗ), from ἀνα- (ana-, “up”) + στρέφω (stréphō, “to turn”).

Example Sentences

• "Anastrophe often, by a pleasing change, Gracefuly puts last the words that first should range."
• "[…] thus the foreign-born baby was denounced and welcomed, the circumstances lamented and the mother congratulated, in a breath, all under cover of the happiest misunderstanding, as effective as the cabalism of Prospero's wand among the Neapolitan mariners, by the skilful Irish development on a grand scale of the rhetorical figure anastrophe, or a turning about and about."

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