For the cross-linking of organic structures, see Chiasma.
Chiasmus is a rhetorical figure based on repetition. It is a cross-parallelism, that is, of the repetition of a syntactic structure; with the particularity that in the case of chiasmus the repeating elements appear first in an order (eg AB) and then in the opposite order (eg BA). Thus, at the beginning of the poem by Manuel Machado Verano,
Fruit trees loaded, golden trigales
chiasmus occurs, because first we find the substantive structure + adjective (A + B) and then its inverse, adjective + noun (B + A).
When there is repetition not only of the syntactic structure, but of the words themselves, we speak of pun, as in the sentence "Neither are all who are, nor are all who are." Origin
The name of the figure comes from the Greek language χιασμóς, 'cross-arrangement' (referring to the form of the Greek letter χ, ji).
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