Home › Glossary › Letter A

Antimeria

Rhetorical Devices
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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

The use of one part of speech as another. A noun may become a verb, or an adjective may become a noun.

Detailed Definition
Antimeria changes a word’s usual grammatical role to make language more vivid, compressed, or surprising. A poet might write that someone “wintered in silence,” turning a season into a verb, or describe “the beyond” as a noun. Such shifts can make abstract ideas feel active, give objects agency, or create fresh emphasis through unexpected syntax. Antimeria is common in inventive poetic diction because it lets familiar words perform newly expressive functions.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s “The thunder would not peace at my bidding” turns peace into a verb; “The moon silvered the road” turns the adjective silver into a verb; “She wintered her heart against goodbye” uses winter as a verb; “We feathered our nest with borrowed dreams” turns feather into a verb
Additional Notes
Antimeria shifts a word into a new grammatical role, as when a noun becomes a verb in “They wintered there.” Such shifts can make diction vivid, compressed, or surprising. Shakespeare frequently uses this flexible word play.
Also Known As
Anthimeria Conversion
Skip to main content