You searched for: “chiasmus
chiasmus (s) (noun) (kigh AZ muhs), chiasmi (kigh AZ migh) (pl)
A rhetorical construction in which the order of the words in the second of two paired phrases, clauses, etc., are in the reverse order of the first one: "The construction of chiasmi consist of inversions of the second of two parallel structures of word orders."

Examples of chiasmi:

It [marriage] may be compared to a cage: the birds without try desperately to get in, and those within try desperately to get out.
—Michel de Montaigne, on marriage
It is not my interest to pay the principal nor is it my principle to pay the interest.
—Richard Brinsely Sheridan, to a lender
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
—Benjamin Franklin
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
—Thomas H. Huxley
The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience, while the error of age is to believe that experience is a substitute for intelligence.
—Lyman Bryson
All misanthropes are curmudgeons, but all curmudgeons are not misanthropes.
—Florence King
The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do.
—James Barrie, author and educator from Scotland
Not all readers become leaders, but all leaders must be readers.
—Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States
—Compiled from Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You
by Dr. Mardy Grothe; Published by Viking; a member of the Penguin Group;
New York; 1999.
This entry is located in the following units: chi; Χ, χ + (page 1) chiasto-, chiasm- + (page 1)