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Anthimeria

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A device that substitutes one grammatical part of speech for another (e.g., verb as noun); in poetry, it creates linguistic freshness, compression, and surprising shifts in syntactic expectation.

Detailed Definition
Anthimeria is the substitution of one part of speech for another (e.g., using a noun as a verb), creating fresh, vivid expression; Shakespeare famously used it (“grace me with your hand”), and it remains a tool for poetic innovation and semantic surprise.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s “unsex me here” (Macbeth) uses “un-” as verb-making prefix; Emily Dickinson turns nouns into verbs: “to afternoon”; Anthimeria energizes language by defying grammatical roles; Hip-hop lyrics often noun verbs (“He Google’d her”) for poetic effect; This device refreshes clichés and expands semantic possibility.
Additional Notes
Word used in grammatical function different from its standard part of speech. E.g., noun as verb. Shakespeare's "to lord it." Creates compression and surprise. Common in innovative or experimental verse.
Also Known As
Word-class shift Functional shift Grammatical conversion Antimeria
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