Figures Of Speech Flashcards
Alliteration
The repetition of an initial consonant sound.
Example: She sells seashells by the seashore.
Anaphora
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
Example: My life is my purpose. My life is my goal. My life is my inspiration.
Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
Example: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Apostrophe
Directly addressing a nonexistent person or an inanimate object as though it were a living being.
Example: Oh, Death, where is thy sting?
Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
Example: The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
Chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
Example: You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.
Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
Example: He passed away instead of saying he died.
Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
Example: I’ve told you a million times.
Irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. Also, a statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.
Example: The fire station burned down.
Metaphor
An implied comparison between two dissimilar things that have something in common.
Example: The world is a stage.
Metonymy
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is sübstituted for another with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.
Example: The pen is mightier than the sword.
Onomatopoeia
The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
Example: The bees buzzed by my ear.
Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
Example: Bittersweet
Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
Example: The wind whispered through the trees.
Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
Example: I’m reading a book on anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down!
