Meanings
nounperipety (countable and uncountable, plural peripeties)
plural peripeties
- alternativecountableuncountableAlternative form of peripeteia (“sudden change in circumstances; crisis”).
As a consequence of the primeval peripety, the Adamic fall narrated in Genesis 3, […]
2020, Paul M. Blowers, Visions and Faces of the Tragic […] , Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 1271 more example
For him to fall in love was itself a violent peripety, bound to produce a violent upheaval […]
1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna sudden and unexpected change of fortune or reverse of circumstances (especially in a literary work)
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Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Cite this entry
APA
peripety. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/peripety
MLA
“peripety.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/peripety. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “peripety,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/peripety.
Source: peripety on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.