hyperbaton

See also: Hyperbaton

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin hyperbaton, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ὑπερβατόν (huperbatón, “overstepping”), from ὑπερβαίνω (huperbaínō), from ὑπέρ (hupér) + βαίνω (baínō, “walk”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /haɪˈpɜːbətɒn/

Noun
Examples (grammar)
  • pity this busy monster, manunkind, not[1]
  • Then, only then, a Jedi will you be. And confront him you will.[2]
Examples (rhetoric)
  • He seems to have handled the situation poorly, to say nothing of his failure to anticipate the inevitable.

hyperbaton (plural hyperbatons or hyperbata)

  1. (grammar) An inversion of the usual or logical order of words or phrases, for emphasis or poetic effect.
    Synonym: anastrophe
    • c. 100, Longinus, chapter XXII, in H. L. Havell, transl., On the Sublime, published 1890:
      In real life we often see a man under the influence of rage, or fear, […] begin a sentence, and then swerve aside into some inconsequent parenthesis, and then again double back to his original statement […] Now the figure hyperbaton is the means which is employed by the best writers to imitate these signs of natural emotion.
  2. (rhetoric) Adding a word or thought to a sentence that is already semantically complete, thus drawing emphasis to the addition.

Translations

References
  1. e e cummings (1944) pity this busy monster, manunkind
  2. Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi, written by George Lucas; Lawrence Kasdan, 1983

Further reading
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