Home › Glossary › Letter R

reversed two-line unit

Form
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 two-line unit whose meaning or impact depends on the inversion of word order, syntax, or imagery between the first and second line.

Detailed Definition
Reversed two-line unit is a couplet in which the second line inverts the grammatical structure, thematic focus, or emotional tone of the first, creating a dialectical tension or resolution; this form is often used in epigrams or meditative verse to encapsulate paradox, irony, or sudden insight within a compact lyrical frame.
Example
Example in poetry:
A couplet (two-line unit) where the second line is a chiasmus or antimetabole of the first line, creating an A-B, B-A pattern in terms of words or concepts.; A pair of lines where the first line is in iambic tetrameter and the second is in the reverse rhythm, trochaic tetrameter, with the same thematic focus.; A two-line unit where the first line poses a question, and the second line answers it by reversing the key words of the question: "To know what you love? / What you love to know."; A distich where the grammatical order of the first line is a standard Subject-Verb-Object, and the second line uses an O-V-S inversion.
Additional Notes
Reversed two-line unit describes a couplet or distich where the second line is a reversal or inversion of the first line in terms of structure, word order, or content, often creating antimetabole.
Also Known As
Inverted couplet backward two-line reversed dyad Chiasmic couplet
Skip to main content