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Reversed-word pair

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 doubled word-pair positioned in reversed order for rhetorical effect.

Detailed Definition
Reversed-word pair is a poetic device pairing two words that are orthographic or phonetic reversals of each other (e.g., “live” and “evil”), creating semantic tension through their mirrored forms; such pairs often underscore themes of duality, moral inversion, or hidden truths, functioning as both sound-play and symbolic commentary.
Example
Example in poetry:
A figure of speech (a form of chiasmus/antimetabole) where two adjacent words are immediately repeated in reverse order with the same or related meaning; for example: "cold fire, fire cold."; The rhetorical phrase: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." (Shakespeare, Macbeth); A line that uses a word pair followed by the same words in reverse to link and emphasize them: "Life and Death, Death and Life are one."; An end-of-line word is immediately repeated as the first word of the next line, but the order of its internal parts is reversed. (A very subtle, theoretical usage).
Additional Notes
Reversed-word pair is a technique where two words are used in one phrase (A-B) and then immediately repeated in reverse order (B-A); a clear example of antimetabole or chiasmus often used for emphasis or balance.
Also Known As
Word inversion pair backward word pair reversed lexical pair Antimetabole couplet
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