chiasmus
/kaɪˈæzməs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.44 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "The realization that Mawlānā was using parallelism and chiasmus to organize the higher levels of his work has been a major surprise."
Etymology
Etymology tree Ancient Greek χῖ (khî) Ancient Greek -ᾰ́ζω (-ắzō) Ancient Greek χῑᾰ́ζω (khīắzō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek χιασμός (khiasmós)bor. Latin chiasmuslbor. English chiasmus Learned borrowing from Latin chiasmus, borrowed from Ancient Greek χιασμός (khiasmós), from χῑᾰ́ζω (khīắzō, “to mark with an X”) + -μός (-mós).