chiasto-, chiasm- +
(Greek: crossed, laid crosswise)
From ciazein to make in the shape of the Greek letter X, chi, the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet.
An intersection or crossing of two tracts in the form of the letter "X" or the Greek letter khi.
1. A crossing; two things placed cross-wise.
2. In anatomy, the crossing over of body parts; any crossing over of biological tissue.
3. A crossing or intersection of the optic nerves on the ventral surface of the brain.
4. Etymology: Mid-19th century via modern Latin from Greek khiasma, "crosspiece", from khiazein, "mark with an X"; from khi, "the (Greek) letter chi".
2. In anatomy, the crossing over of body parts; any crossing over of biological tissue.
3. A crossing or intersection of the optic nerves on the ventral surface of the brain.
4. Etymology: Mid-19th century via modern Latin from Greek khiasma, "crosspiece", from khiazein, "mark with an X"; from khi, "the (Greek) letter chi".
chiasmal (noun) (no comparatives)
A reference to the crossing over of two parts or structures; such as, the fibers of the optic nerves in the brain.
Surgical fixation of the optic nerves that pass backward and cross some fibers from one side to the other side.
A dilation of the subarachnoid (soft fibers or hairs so entangled as to give look like a cobweb) space below and anterior to the crossing of the optic nerves from one side to the other side.
A twisting of homologous chromosomes around each other during one state of meiosis, resulting in a possible interchange of genes by the chromosomes.
chiasmic (adjective) (no comparatives)
Relating to the crossing of nerves that cross back and forth.
1. A device to measure the distance between the centers of rotation of the two eyes.
2. Etymology: the crossing of two lines as in chi (X), twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet.
2. Etymology: the crossing of two lines as in chi (X), twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet.
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.
It is not my interest to pay the principal nor is it my principle to pay the interest.
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
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.
All misanthropes are curmudgeons, but all curmudgeons are not misanthropes.
The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do.
Not all readers become leaders, but all leaders must be readers.
chiastic (adjective), more chiastic, most chiastic
Pertaining to, or characterized by the inversion of the second of two parallel structures.
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