Rhetorical Devices

Question 1

antagoge

Answer 1

answering a statement by a counter charge

“I know I’ve lost my job, but I’m looking forward to spending time at home”

Question 2

epithet

Answer 2

a characterizing word or phrase used in place of an actual name
“man’s best friend”-dog

Question 3

asyndeton

Answer 3

no conjunctions in a list

“he has provided the poor with jobs, with opportunity, with self- respect”

Question 4

polysyndeton

Answer 4

conjunctions used in a list

“we demanded food and plates and tables and chairs”

Question 5

zeugma

Answer 5

the use of a word to govern or modify another word

“on his fishing trip, he caught a trout and a cold”

Question 6

synecdoche

Answer 6

part is used for the whole

“the farmer has 200 head of cattle and 3 hired hands”

Question 7

metonymy

Answer 7

a mixture of metaphor and synecdoche

“the orders came from the White House”

Question 8

hyperbaton

Answer 8

changing the order of words for emphasis

“these are rumors strange”

Question 9

aporia

Answer 9

cast doubt in a modest way

“I am not sure I can accept Tom’s reasons for…”

Question 10

anaphora

Answer 10

repetition of the same words at the beginning of successive phrases
“not time, not money, not laws, but willing diligence will get this done”

Question 11

amplification

Answer 11

repeating a word and adding more detail to it to create emphasis on something that may have been passed over before
“this orchard, this lovely, shaded orchard”

Question 12

parataxis

Answer 12

writing successive independent clauses
“we walked to the top of the hill, and we sat down”
“I came- I saw- I conquered”

Question 13

hyperbole

Answer 13

exaggerated terms

“his mind was humongous”

Question 14

understatement

Answer 14

not exaggerated terms

“his mind was petite”

Question 15

litotes

Answer 15

understatement with double negatives

“not bad at all”

Question 16

antithesis

Answer 16

the placing of a sentence or one of its parts against another to which it is opposed to form a balanced contrast
“give me liberty or give me death”

Question 17

hypophora

Answer 17

author asks a question then answers it

Question 18

sententia

Answer 18

a simple saying that embodies a simple truth

“power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”

Question 19

exempium

Answer 19

citing an example using an illustrative story

“this is an example of an exempium”

Question 20

climax

Answer 20

a figure consisting of a series of related ideas arranged that the preceding one has less intensity than the next
“I am the way, the truth, and the life”

Question 21

parallelism

Answer 21

a balance of two or more similar words, phrases, or clauses

“you can take a boy out of his country, not the country out of the boy”

Question 22

chiasmus

Answer 22

a reverse of the words

“ don’t sweat petty things and don’t pet sweaty things”

Question 23

anadiplosis

Answer 23

repetition of the first part of a clause or sentence of a prominent words from the latter part to start the next sentence
“fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering”

Question 24

rhetorical question

Answer 24

a question asked solely to produce an effect and expect no reply

Question 25

procatalepsis

Answer 25

the speaker raises an objection to his own argument and then immediately answers it. used to solidify counterarguments before the audience can raise them
“I don’t have time to work out,” “You don’t have to have time- do it while you eat!”

Question 26

distinctio

Answer 26

explicit references to various meanings of a word, to remove ambiguities

Question 27

simile

Answer 27

compare two unlike things with like or as

Question 28

metaphor

Answer 28

compare two unlike things without using like or as

Question 29

analogy

Answer 29

a similarity between like features of two things where a comparison is used
“I feel like a fish out of water”

Question 30

allusion

Answer 30

a reference to the past, for a reason

Question 31

eponym

Answer 31

a word based on or derived from a person’s name

“Achilles Heel” “Caesar- Czar”

Question 32

colloquialism

Answer 32

slang

Question 33

conduplicatio

Answer 33

taking the first word and moving it throughout the sentence

“I answered their questions, including questions, questions no one would want to answer”

Question 34

metabasis

Answer 34

sums up a body of work as a transition

“now that I’ve talked about this, let’s talk about this”

Question 35

parenthesis

Answer 35

a phrase that interrupts a sentence with an aside

“Will Smith- you must know him- is coming tonight”

Question 36

apostrophe

Answer 36

breaking the flow to the writing to directly address something
“death, where is your sting? grave, where is thy victory?”

Question 37

enumeratio

Answer 37

the listing or detailing of the parts of something

“A Junior Mint is chocolate. It is delicious”