What is the term for moving an adjective from before to after the noun it describes?

Question

I think this is a bit of an anachronism, but sometimes in nursery rhymes or songs you'll hear sentences in which an adjective describing a noun is moved to be after the noun it describes, and I was wondering if there's a specific term for this. Examples:

"The little sheep black" instead of "The little black sheep"

"The virgin pure" instead of "The pure virgin"

Possible a duplicate: Is 'the city beautiful' – Orlando's motto – grammatically correct?, at least in spirit. The (broader) terms, for unusual word order, are given there. — Edwin Ashworth, Jun 17 '19 at 18:26
@FF Isn't that term usually reserved for those adjectives that are usually found after the noun? — Edwin Ashworth, Jun 17 '19 at 18:29

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 17 '19 at 17:10

1

It's a form of inversion, also known as an anastrophe.

Inversion, also known as “anastrophe,” is a literary technique in which the normal order of words is reversed, in order to achieve a particular effect of emphasis or meter.

answered Jun 17 '19 at 17:10

Gnawme

40,887

Be careful: in some contexts the term inversion refers only to placing the sentence's verb before that verb's subject, not to the rearrangement of any other syntactic elements. – tchrist Jun 17 '19 at 19:43
@tchrist Thanks, the reference at the link cites that case. – Gnawme Jun 17 '19 at 20:04

What is the term for moving an adjective from before to after the noun it describes?

1 Answers1