Home › Glossary › Letter H

Hysteron proteron

Device
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

A figure that places what should come last at the beginning for emphasis.

Detailed Definition
Hysteron proteron is a rhetorical inversion where the natural or logical order of events is reversed for emphasis or poetic effect—literally “the latter first,” as in “put on your shoes and socks” or Virgil’s “arms and the man I sing”; in poetry, this device heightens drama, creates suspense, or underscores fate by presenting consequence before cause, making the familiar strange and compelling reevaluation of sequence and causality.
Example
Example in poetry:
Hysteron proteron: “Put on your shoes and socks” (reversed order); Virgil: “Arma virumque cano” (arms before man); Poetic inversion for emphasis: “Death and life he’ll judge”; Not error but rhetorical device; foregrounds important element.
Additional Notes
Reversing natural time order ("later, then earlier"). Rhetoric term. Common in medias res technique. Study tip: Track chronology carefully; note effect of disrupted sequence on meaning.
Other Meanings of “Hysteron proteron”
Also Known As
Cart-before-horse Reversed order Inverted sequence Later-first
Skip to main content