Figures of Speech

  1. Alliteration - The repetition of an initial consonant sound.

  2. Allusion - Figure of speech that makes a reference to or representation of, a place, event, literary work, myth, or work of art, either directly or by implication.

  3. Antithesis - The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

  4. Apostrophe - Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.

  5. Assonance - Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.

  6. Euphemism - The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.

  7. Hyperbole - An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.

  8. Irony - The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

  9. Litotes - A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

  10. Metaphor - An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

  11. Metonymy - A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.

  12. Onomatopoeia - The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

  13. Oxymoron - A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.

  14. Paradox - A statement that appears to contradict itself.

  15. Personification - A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

  16. Simile - A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as")... [continues]

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