Home › Glossary › Letter P

Paradiastole

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 rhetorical redefinition that reframes a negative trait as a virtue or vice versa.

Detailed Definition
Paradiastole is a rhetorical figure in which a potentially negative or neutral trait is reframed through euphemistic or valorizing language to present it as a virtue or strength; in poetry, this device allows poets to subvert conventional judgments or assert defiant pride, as when John Milton describes Satan’s “courage never to submit or yield” in Paradise Lost, transforming rebellion into heroic resolve through strategic lexical recasting.
Example
Example in poetry:
Paradiastole in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”); ironic reframing in John Donne’s “The Flea”; modern paradiastole in Tracy K. Smith’s “The United States Welcomes You”; reframing poverty as virtue in Langston Hughes
Additional Notes
Rhetorical device redefining term in favorable light; euphemistic redescription. "Not defeat but strategic withdrawal." Related to euphemism but specifically involves reframing. Useful for ironic or satirical verse.
Other Meanings of “Paradiastole”
Also Known As
Euphemistic excuse Softening redescription Mitigation figure Gentle reframing
Skip to main content