Figures of Speech Definitions

Question 1

Allusion

Answer 1

An indirect or passing reference to an event, person, place or artistic work that the author assumes the reader will understand

Question 2

Anachronism

Answer 2

An event, object, custom, person or thing that is out of its natural order of time

Question 3

Analogy

Answer 3

A comparison of similar things, often to explain something unfamiliar with something familiar

Question 4

Aphorism

Answer 4

A terse statement of a principal or truth; a maxim

Question 5

Apostrophe

Answer 5

A rhetorical device in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an inanimate object or abstraction

Question 6

Cliche

Answer 6

Any expression that has been used so often it has lost its freshness

Question 7

Epigram

Answer 7

Any terse, witty, pointed saying

Question 8

Euphemism

Answer 8

The substitution of a mild term for one more offensive or hurtful

Question 9

Figurative language

Answer 9

Language that contains figures of speech, such as metaphor, simile, personification, etc

Question 10

Hyperbole

Answer 10

Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis in a figure of speech not meant literally

Question 11

Kenning

Answer 11

A metaphoric compound word or phrase used a synonym for a common noun

Question 12

Litotes

Answer 12

A figure of speech by which an affirmation is made indirectly by saying its opposite, usually with an effect of understatement

Question 13

Malapropism

Answer 13

The comic substitution of one word for another similar in sound, but quite different in meaning

Question 14

Metaphor

Answer 14

The most important and widespread figure of speech in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common qualities shared by the two

Question 15

Metonymy

Answer 15

Figure of speech in which a representative term is used for a larger idea

Question 16

Onomatopoeia

Answer 16

The use of words that seem to imitate the sounds they refer to

Question 17

Oxymoron

Answer 17

A figure of speech in which two contradictory words or phrases are combined in a single expression

Question 18

Personification

Answer 18

The technique by which animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate objects are referred to as if they were human.

Question 19

Proverb

Answer 19

A short saying that expresses some commonplace truth or bit of folk wisdom

Question 20

Pun

Answer 20

A form of wit, not necessarily funny, involving a play on a word with two or more meanings

Question 21

Simile

Answer 21

A less direct metaphor, using like or as

Question 22

Syllogism

Answer 22

A form of logical reasoning, consisting of two premises and a conclusion

Question 23

Synaesthesia

Answer 23

The description of one kind of sensation in terms of another

Question 24

Synecdode

Answer 24

Figure of speech that utilizes a part as representative of the whole

Question 25

Tautology

Answer 25

Repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase or sentence

Question 26

Understatement

Answer 26

A type of verbal irony in which something is purposely represented as being far less important

Question 27

Zeugma

Answer 27

A figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (or in a literal and figurative sense)