The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Hysteron proteron

Hysteron proteron: Greek for “latter earlier” or “latter first,” a rhetorical figure involving a chronological reversal or other inversion of the normal or expected order of things.

EXAMPLE: In William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (1607), Mark Antony’s friend Enobarbus says that retreating ships “fly and turn the rudder.” Presumably, the ships turned around before retreating.