Figurative Language Flashcards
Term: Allusion
Meaning: Figure of explication using a brief or casual reference to a famous person, group, historical event, place, or work of art.
Example #1: Gina had a smile that rivaled the Mona Lisa.
Example #2: We got a new Einstein in school today.
Term: Simile
Meaning: A commonly used figure of speech which draws a direct comparison between two different things using the word “like” or “as.”
Example #1: My old dog was snoring just as loud as my dad was.
Example #2: They fought like cats and dogs.
Term: Metaphor
Meaning: A literary device comparing to unlike things through a perceived similarity.
Example #1: The sun was a toddler insistently refusing to go to bed: It was past eight thirty and still light.
Example #2: The new parents had stars in their eyes when they saw their kid for the very first time.
Term: Personification
Meaning: Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities.
Example #1: The stars winked in the night sky.
Example #2: Lightning danced across the sky.
Term: Hyperbole
Meaning: Is often accomplished via comparisons, similes, and metaphors.
Example #1: I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate.
Example #2: The suitcase weighed a ton
Term: Understatement
Meaning: A transitive verb used by writers or speakers in order to intentionally make a situation seem less important or smaller than it is.
Example #1: Deserts are sometimes hot, dry, and sandy.
Example #2: “I did OK on that test.” You scraped the entire side of your car.
Term: Paradox
Meaning: A statement that is self-contradictory on the surface, yet seems to evoke a truth nonetheless.
Example #1: Whoever loses his life, shall find it.
Example #2: It seems impossible to me that this administration could so quickly reverse itself on this issue.
Term: Dramatic Irony
Meaning: A literary device by which the audience’s or reader’s understanding of events or individuals in a work surpasses that of its characters.
Example #1: A woman thinks her boyfriend is acting strangely because he’s about to propose, but the audience knows that he is planning to run away with another woman, intensifying emotions.
Example #2: Girl in a horror film hides in a closet where the killer just went (the audience knows the killer is there, but she does not).
Term: Verbal Irony
Meaning: A statement in which the speaker’s words are incongruous with the speaker’s intent.
Example #1: a character stepping out into a hurricane and saying, “What nice weather we’re having!”
Example #2: A woman spills her morning coffee on her white silk blouse and says, “This day couldn’t be off to a better start.”
Term: Analogy
Meaning: The comparison of two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one.
Example #1: She’s as blind as a bat.
Example #2: You have to be as busy as a bee to get good grades in high school.
Term: Anecdote
Meaning: a story, spoken, written, acted out, or produced through a combination of these communications.
Example #1: : You know, when I was a kid, my dog was my best friend. My childhood was better because of him. The mother contemplates his story and then agrees that they should get a dog.
Example #2: I once had a border collie. She was so smart! Every morning, I’d open up the front door and she’d run out, pick up the newspaper and deliver it to my husband at the breakfast table.
Term: Allegory
Meaning: A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse.
Example #1: The tortoise and the Hare (expressing the belief that the slow and steady will always defeat the quick and prideful in the end.)
Example #2: The lion and the mouse (a lion, who symbolizes the powerful, spares the life of a mouse, who symbolizes the ignored or the powerless.)
