Peripeteia
WordNet
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"
WiktionaryText
Etymology
Greek περιπετεια, ultimately from περι− ‘round, around, about’ + πετ− stem of πιτειν ‘to fall’.
Noun
- a reversal of fortune; a sudden change in circumstances
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- 1965: Once more I was a man in a myth, incapable of understanding it, but somehow aware that understanding it meant it must continue, however sinister its peripeteia. — John Fowles, The Magus
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