Definition:
A verbal pattern (a type of antithesis) in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed. Essentially the same as antimetabole. (Note that a chiasmus includes anadiplosis, but not every anadiplosis reverses itself in the manner of a chiasmus.) Adjective: chiastic. See also: Chiasmus on the Campaign Trail.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "to invert" or "mark with the letter X."Examples:
- "Nice to see you, to see you, nice!"
(British TV entertainer Bruce Forsyth) - "[Tommy] held it as he always held it, as though he had held it always."
(Bernard Malamud, "The Letter") - "I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me."
(Ovid) - "Fair is foul, and foul is fair."
(William Shakespeare, Macbeth I.i) - "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
(Samuel Johnson) - "If black men have no rights in the eyes of the white men, of course the whites can have none in the eyes of the
blacks."
(Frederick Douglass, "An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage") - "The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order."
(Alfred North Whitehead) - "The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults."
(Peter De Vries) - "Don't sweat the petty things--and don't pet the sweaty things."
(anonymous) - "You can take it out of the country, but you can't take the country out of it."
(slogan for Salem cigarettes) - "Friendly Americans win American friends."
(United States Travel Service, 1963) - "Never let a fool kiss you--or a kiss fool you."
(anonymous) - "My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington."
(Barack Obama) - "I am stuck on Band-Aid, and Band-Aid's stuck on me."
(advertising jingle for Band-Aid bandages)
Pronunciation: ki-AZ-mus
Also Known As: antimetabole, epanodos
