Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The second stanza, and those like it, in a poem consisting of alternating stanzas in contrasting metrical form.
  • noun The second division of the triad of a Pindaric ode, having the same stanza form as the strophe.
  • noun The choral movement in classical Greek drama in the opposite direction from that of the strophe.
  • noun The part of a choral ode sung while this movement is executed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A part of an ancient Greek choral ode corresponding to the strophe, which immediately precedes it, and identical with it in meter.
  • noun In rhetoric: The reciprocal conversion of the same words in consecutive clauses or sentences: as, the master of the servant, the servant of the master.
  • noun The turning of an adversary's plea against him: as, had I killed him as you report, I had not stayed to bury him.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun In Greek choruses and dances, the returning of the chorus, exactly answering to a previous strophe or movement from right to left. Hence: The lines of this part of the choral song.
  • noun The repetition of words in an inverse order; as, the master of the servant and the servant of the master.
  • noun The retort or turning of an adversary's plea against him.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun In Greek choruses and dances, the returning of the chorus, exactly answering to a previous strophe or movement from right to left. Hence: The lines of this part of the choral song.
  • noun rhetoric The repetition of words in an inverse order.
  • noun rhetoric The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses
  • noun The retort or turning of an adversary's plea against him.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the section of a choral ode answering a previous strophe in classical Greek drama; the second of two metrically corresponding sections in a poem

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin antistrophē, antistrophe of Greek tragedy, from Greek, strophic correspondence, from antistrephein, to turn back : anti-, back; see anti– + strephein, to turn; see strophe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin, from Ancient Greek  (antistrophe, "to turn to the opposite side"); against + to turn. See strophe.

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Examples

  • Or painful life support beneath such weight of woe? antistrophe 1

    Sophocles : Philoctetes Sophocles 2004

  • In the unwholesome pool, or ever – stagnant lake. antistrophe 2

    Sophocles : Philoctetes Sophocles 2004

  • Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain. antistrophe 3

    The Choephori 2002

  • The cause of all our wo, is red with Persian gore. antistrophe 2

    The Persians 2002

  • All hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well – loved lord! antistrophe 3

    The Choephori 2002

  •       Unto the dawning light of liberty; antistrophe 2

    The Choephori 2002

  • Safe from the toils of war her homeward-marching train. antistrophe 1

    The Persians 2002

  • And lay their rampired towers in ruins on the ground. antistrophe 2

    The Persians 2002

  • In another, two or three burning glasses, wherewith he made both men and women sometimes mad, and in the church put them quite out of countenance; for he said that there was but an antistrophe, or little more difference than of a literal inversion, between a woman folle a la messe and molle a la fesse, that is, foolish at the mass and of a pliant buttock.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  •       By two usurpers, sin – defiled —     An evil path of woe and bane! antistrophe 1

    The Choephori 2002

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