Glossary Terms

Question 1

a ballad

Answer 1

a type of poem that tells a story and was traditionally set to music.

Question 2

figurative language

Answer 2

the use of non-literal phrases or words to create further meaning in writing or speech

Question 3

similie

Answer 3

a way to compare things with like or as

Question 4

metaphor

Answer 4

a way to describe something by saying it is a certain thing

Question 5

stanza

Answer 5

a group of lines in a poem (or verse)

Question 6

tercet

Answer 6

3 line stanza

Question 7

structure

Answer 7

the way the poet has organised the poem on the page
(number of stanzas, lines per stanza)

Question 8

alliteration

Answer 8

when the beginning sound of words is repeated in nearby words

Question 9

sibilance

Answer 9

the repeated use of the ‘s’ sound in the beginning, middle, or end of nearby words

Question 10

assonance

Answer 10

the repetition of vowel sounds in a series of two or more words

Question 11

personification

Answer 11

giving an inanimate object human feelings

Question 12

rhyming couplets

Answer 12

two consecutive lines of verse that rhyme

Question 13

tone

Answer 13

the overall mood or attitude conveyed by the narrator’s word choice in a story.

Question 14

mood

Answer 14

the feeling/atmosphere that the poem creates for the reader

Question 15

imagery

Answer 15

visually descriptive language, often figurative

Question 16

novel

Answer 16

a fiction prose narrative of significant length and complexity that deals imaginatively and has characters, a plot and setting

Question 17

prose

Answer 17

not poetry or drama, no stage directions, full sentences + follows punctuation rules

Question 18

subtext

Answer 18

a deeper, often hidden, meaning in a text
(below the surface, read between the lines)

Question 19

adverb

Answer 19

a word that describes a verb

Question 20

fronted adverbial

Answer 20

words or phrases at the front of a sentence that give more information to the sentence

Question 21

onomatopoeia

Answer 21

words that sounds like the noise it describes (slash!)

Question 22

foreshadow

Answer 22

a hint in the text about events or revelations to come in the story

Question 23

symbol

Answer 23

a word or image which represents something else
e.g. a dove is a symbol of peace

Question 24

motif

Answer 24

a recurring image or idea in a story, which usually has a deeper significance

Question 25

connotation

Answer 25

a feeling or idea that a word has, in addition to its literal or main meaning
e.g. a red rose has the connotation of love

Question 26

symbolism

Answer 26

a word or picture that represents something else

Question 27

sensory imagery

Answer 27

the use of vivid and descriptive language that appeals to the reader’s five senses