Figures of Speech

Question 1

omission of conjunctions to emphasize rapidity

Answer 1

Asyndeton

Question 2

a double negative as an understatement

Answer 2

Litotes (“Well, you’re not a bad runner”)

Question 4

the deliberate reversal of word order to emphasize the words placed earlier

Answer 4

Anastrophe

Question 5

a form of interlocked words that follows the pattern ABCBA

Answer 5

Golden Line (commonly used by Ovid)

Question 7

repetition of a word

Answer 7

Anaphora (typically used by Vergil and Cicero)

Question 8

speaking of something future as already completed

Answer 8

Prolepsis

Question 10

juxtaposition of contradictory words used in the same phrase

Answer 10

Oxymoron (“Festina lente”)

Question 12

pretending to be someone else for dramatic effect

Answer 12

Prosopopoeia (most famously used by Cicero)

Question 14

corresponding pairs being inverted, following ABBA pattern

Answer 14

Chiasmus (e.g. noun-adjective-adjective-noun)

Question 15

three parallel descriptions that increase in length

Answer 15

Tricolon Crescens (commonly used by Cicero)

Question 16

a significant distortion of normal word order

Answer 16

Hyperbaton (“vasto rex Aeolus antro” Aeneid Book 1)

Question 17

draws attention to an idea by pretending to pass over it

Answer 17

Praeteritio (used almost exclusively by Cicero)

Question 20

using too many words, to the point of redundancy

Answer 20

Pleonasm (common in Vergil) (“Sic ora effata” Hecuba, Aeneid Book 2)

Question 21

use of two nouns connected by a conjunction to mean one unified noun

Answer 21

Hendiadys (often uses et, atque, ac)

Question 22

the use of one verb to describe two subjects in different ways

Answer 22

Zeugma (“If we don’t hang together, we shall hang separately.” -Benjamin Franklin)

Question 25

repetition of a word, but in a different form

Answer 25

Polyptoton (often used by Catullus)

Question 26

use of more conjunctions than is necessary

Answer 26

Polysyndeton

Question 27

a variation of the usual word order in prose to interlock ideas

Answer 27

Synchesis (follows ABAB pattern)

Question 28

the separation of parts of a compound word with intervening words

Answer 28

Tmesis (t-freakin-mesis)

Question 30

the use of part to represent the whole

Answer 30

Synecdoche

Question 31

reversal of normal sequence of events in order to put the more important idea, which would come later chronologically, first

Answer 31

Hysteron Proteron

Question 33

building of suspense by postponing a significant word until the next line

Answer 33

Enjambment

Question 35

use of one noun to represent another that is closely associated with it

Answer 35

Metonymy (e.g. using Ceres for grain or Bacchus for wine)

Question 39

an abrupt break in a sentence, wherein the speaker is seemingly overwhelmed with emotion

Answer 39

Aposiopesis (“Quos ego” Neptune, Aeneid Book 1)

Question 42

a digression that vividly describes a place, object, or event

Answer 42

Ecphrasis (see Aeneid: murals Temple of Juno, doors of Temple of Apollo, and Aeneas’s shield, and Catullus Poem 64: the bedspread)