hypallage

English[edit]

From Latin hypallage, from Ancient Greek ὑπαλλαγή (hupallagḗ), from ὑπό (hupó, “hypo-”) + ἀλλάσσειν (allássein, “to exchange”).

Examples (rhetoric, grammar)

drunk driving - it is a driver not the "driving" that is drunk
her beauty's face - "her" face not "her beauty's"
I can't knock the smirk off his stupid face - the thing that is referred to being stupid is "him", and not "his face"
Bottom: The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. — Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream act IV, scene 1 - Sense and sense organ are repeatedly mismatched by this comic character.

hypallage (plural hypallages)

(rhetoric, grammar) A construction in which a modifier with meaning associated with one word appears grammatically applied to another, often used as literary device.

literary device