peripeteia
pe·ri·pe·teia
noun
1.
a sudden and unexpected change of fortune or reverse of circumstances (especially in a literary work)
- “a peripeteia swiftly turns a routine sequence of events into a story worth telling”
Origin
From Late Latin peripetia, and its source Ancient Greek περιπέτεια (peripéteia), from περιπίπτω (peripíptō, “to change suddenly”), from περί (perí, “round, around, about”) + the stem of πίπτω (píptō, “to fall”).
Related words
Broader terms
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.