peripeteia

[Dave Monroe]

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

peripeteia or peripetia

PRONUNCIATION:
(per-uh-puh-TEE-uh, -TIE-uh)

MEANING:
noun: A sudden or unexpected change of fortune, especially in a literary work.
A classic example is Oedipus learning about his parentage.

ETYMOLOGY:
>From Greek peripiptein (to change suddenly), from peri- (near, around)
+ piptein (to fall). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pet- (to
rush or fly), which also gave us feather, petition, compete,
perpetual, pterodactyl, helicopter, pterodactyl, propitious, pinnate,
pteridology (study of ferns),lepidopterology (study of butterflies and
moths), pencel (flag at the end of a lance), and impetuous. Earliest
documented use: 1591.

USAGE:
“Dr. Farhad feels the glaring eyes of one of the machine-gun-toting
officers on him and smiles bitterly at his fate. ... This selfless
doctor, even at this daunting moment of peripeteia, is worried about
the critical condition of one of his poor patients whom he is
scheduled to operate on tomorrow. “
Shahriar Mandanipour, translated by Sara Khalili; Censoring an Iranian
Love Story; Knopf; 2009.

See more usage examples of peripeteia in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

http://wordsmith.org/words/peripeteia.html
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