Words & WritingGreek → English
Hyperbaton
/haɪˈpɜːbətɒn/noun
The deliberate rearrangement of normal word order for emphasis or effect.
The Greek roots
ὑπέρ
hupér
over, beyond
βαίνω
baínō
to step, go
Literally: “stepped over”
The story of the word
Greek and Latin could scatter a phrase across a whole line because case endings hold the sense together, so hyperbaton was a poet's ordinary tool rather than a special effect. English, which leans on word order for meaning, has far less room. Yoda's speech is the best-known modern case, and the reason it reads as archaic rather than broken.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
hyperbolebasisacrobatdiabetes
In a sentence
Horace uses hyperbaton so tightly that a single line has to be untangled backwards.
"This I must see" is a mild hyperbaton and none the worse for it.