hypallage Greek: “exchange.” A common device in which words are interchanged. The use of hypallage shifts the application of words, reversing their syntactic relation. It transfers and perturbs one’s understanding. Thomas Gray declares, “The plowman homeward plods his weary way, / And leaves the world to darkness and to me.” Technically, it is the plowman and not the way that is weary, but Gray gains some additional intensity, some greater heaviness, by projecting the weariness onto the path. The surrealist Jean Arp creates a discordant effect when he declares, “The bed was sleeping soundly.”