Definition of "chiasmus"
chiasmus
noun
countable and uncountable, plural chiasmi or chiasmuses
(rhetoric) An inversion of the relationship between the elements of phrases.
Quotations
The book of Habakkuk has been discovered to consist of a closely knit chiastic structure throughout. This is the first poem of such length to stand revealed as a literary unit of this kind, though chiasmus has already been discovered throughout many psalms […]
1934, H. H. Walker, N. W. Lund, “The Literary Structure of the Book of Habakkuk”, in Journal of Biblical Literature, 53 (4): 355
Leeman therefore holds that chiasmus is the basic order in Greek and Latin: antithesis is, he claims, normal for the modern, rational mind, but for the Greeks and Romans chiasmus was more natural.
2002, Simon R. Slings, “Figures of Speech in Aristophanes”, in Andreas Willi, editor, The Language of Greek Comedy, pages 103–104