(Brief) Glossary of Rhetorical Devices

Question 1

Apostrophe

Answer 1

Sudden turn from the general audience to address a specific group of people or personified abstraction absent or present.

Question 2

Hyperbole

Answer 2

Exaggeration or emphasis for rhetorical effect

Question 3

Euphemism

Answer 3

Substitution of an agreeable (or at least non-offensive expression) for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant.

Question 4

Litotes

Answer 4

Understatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed.

Question 5

Paralipsis

Answer 5

Emphasis of an idea by the presence that it is too obvious to discuss.

Question 6

Rhetorical question

Answer 6

A question not intended to require an answer —— where the question itself raises the point that is being made.

Question 7

Anecdotes