Hypallage

//hɪˈpælədʒi// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The use of a grammatical modifier which syntactically modifies an item other than the one it belongs to semantically, generating a connection between the two. rhetoric, uncountable
  2. 2
    reversal of the syntactic relation of two words (as in ‘her beauty's face’) wordnet
  3. 3
    A phrase in which this occurs. countable, rhetoric

Synonyms

All synonyms
figure of speechhysteron proteronmalapropismmetaphormetastasispalindrome

Etymology

From Latin hypallagē, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ὑπαλλαγή (hupallagḗ), from ὑπό (hupó, “hypo-”) + ἀλλάσσειν (allássein, “to exchange”).

Related phrases

literary device

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.