What does antimetabole mean?
Antimetabole is a rhetorical figure in which the same words or phrases appear twice in close succession, but with their order reversed, creating a mirrored structure that audiences find strikingly memorable. The classic example is John F. Kennedy's inaugural line, 'Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,' where both halves contain identical words flipped in sequence. Closely related to, and often treated as a strict subtype of, the broader figure of chiasmus, antimetabole differs from antithesis in that it demands exact verbal repetition rather than mere contrast of ideas. The device has been prized since antiquity: Greek and Roman rhetoricians catalogued it among the figures that lend speeches rhythm, balance, and persuasive punch. Today it flourishes in political oratory, advertising slogans, aphorisms, and literary prose, wherever a speaker wants an idea to lodge firmly in the listener's memory through symmetry and reversal.
nounA rhetorical figure in which words or phrases are repeated in successive clauses but in reverse order, as in 'ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.' It is a form of chiasmus built on the exact repetition and inversion of the same words.
- A rhetorical device in which the same words are repeated in reverse order across two parallel phrases or clauses, producing a mirrored, memorable effect.
"The senator's speech closed with a memorable antimetabole: 'We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.'"
"'You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy' is a classic antimetabole."
"The advertising copywriter used antimetabole to great effect: 'It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.'"
The regular English plural is 'antimetaboles'; the learned Latinate plural 'antimetabola' appears mainly in classical rhetoric scholarship.
"The textbook collected dozens of famous antimetaboles drawn from political speeches across the century."
JFK's most famous line — 'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country' — is a textbook antimetabole, a trick Greek rhetoricians were teaching over two thousand years ago.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of antimetabole
Antimetabole derives from ancient Greek 'antimetabolē', meaning 'turning about' or 'change in the opposite direction', formed from 'anti-' ('against, opposite') and 'metabolē' ('change, turning'). The term was used by Greek rhetoricians to name this figure of reversed repetition and passed into Latin rhetorical tradition before entering English usage in the early modern period. Its Greek root 'metabolē' is shared by the scientific vocabulary of metabolism and related terms such as metabolite and anabolism, making those words distant cousins of this rhetorical term.
How antimetabole is actually used
Antimetabole is a technical term of rhetoric, encountered mainly in writing guides, classical scholarship, and discussions of public speaking rather than everyday conversation. It carries no emotional connotation itself, though the figures it describes are prized for their memorability and persuasive force. The plural is usually given as 'antimetaboles'; the Latinate form 'antimetabola' also appears in scholarly contexts.
Easily confused with antimetabole
Chiasmus is the broader figure of inverted structure or order between parallel clauses, whereas antimetabole is its stricter subtype requiring the exact same words to be repeated in reverse order.
Antithesis juxtaposes contrasting ideas or phrases without requiring any reversal of word order, while antimetabole specifically repeats and reverses the same words.