chiasmus

1. (rhetoric) An inversion of the relationship between the elements of phrases.Examples: "The book of Habakkuk has been discovered to consist of a closely knit chiastic structure throughout. This is the first poem of such length to stand revealed as a literary unit of this kind, though chiasmus has already been discovered throughout many psalms[…]"; "John F. Kennedy is more famous for his chiasmus than for many of his policies: "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.""; "Leeman therefore holds that chiasmus is the basic order in Greek and Latin: antithesis is, he claims, normal for the modern, rational mind, but for the Greeks and Romans chiasmus was more natural."Synonyms: chiasmcountablerhetoricuncountable