Alliteration
Repetition of an initial consonant sound.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "putting letters together"
Example:
"Pompey Pipped at the Post as Pippo Pounces"
Anaphora
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "carrying up or back"
Example: "I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize."
Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "opposition"
Examples:
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is addressed as if present and capable of understanding.
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "turning away"
Examples:
"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again . . .."
Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "sound"
Examples:
"It beats as it sweeps as it cleans."
Chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
Etymology:From the Greek, "to invert" or "mark with the letter X."
Examples:
"Nice to see you, to see you, nice!"
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."
Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "use of good words"
Example:
Dr. House: I'm busy.
Thirteen: We need you to . . .
Dr. House: Actually, as you can see, I'm not busy. It's just a euphemism for "get the hell out of here."
Pre-owned for used or second-hand; enhanced interrogation for torture; wind for belch or fart; convenience fee for surcharge
Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "excess"
Example:
Most collectors of coins would give the Earth to own one of the copper coins issued by
Mohammad Bin Tughlaq.
Irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.
Etymology:
From Greek, "feigned ignorance"
Example:
"It is a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon, launder became a dirty word."
Litotes
A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "plainness, simplicity"
Examples:
"We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all."
Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.
Metaphor is the comparison between two entities without the use of words 'Like'/ 'as' where as in simile these words are used.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "carrying over"
Examples:
"Between the lower east side tenements
the sky is a snotty handkerchief."
"Men's words are bullets, that their enemies take up and make use of against them."
Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.
-- "Metaphor creates the relation between its objects, while metonymy presupposes that relation."
Etymology:
From the Greek, "change of name"
Example:
"The B.L.T. left without paying."
(waitress referring to a customer)
Onomatopoeia
The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "to make names"
Example:
"I'm getting married in the morning!
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime."
Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "sharp-dull"
Example:
"O brawling love! O loving hate! . . .
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this."
(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
"That building is a little bit big and pretty ugly."
Paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "incredible, contrary to opinion or expectation"
Example:
"The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot."
"War is peace."
"Freedom is slavery."
"Ignorance is strength."
Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
Example:
The wind stood up and gave a shout.
He whistled on his fingers and
Kicked the withered leaves about
And thumped the branches with his hand
And said he'd kill and kill and kill,
And so he will and so he will.
Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
Etymology:
Uncertain
Examples:
"When it rains, it pours."
Simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.
n "The simile sets two ideas side by side; in the metaphor they become superimposed."
Simile vs metaphor(As per http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/simile)
Similes are marked by use of the words "like" and "as". However, "The snow blanketed the earth" is also a simile and not a metaphor because the verb "blanketed" is a shortened form of the phrase "covered like a blanket". Metaphors differ from similes in that the two objects are not compared, but treated as identical: The phrase "The snow was a blanket over the earth" is a metaphor. Some would argue that a simile is actually a specific type of metaphor. However, only some similes can be contracted into metaphors, and some metaphors can be expanded into similes. It is said to blend with the 'prosaic' metaphor.
Etymology:From Latin, "likeness" or "comparison"
"Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep."
"My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain."
Synechdoche
A figure of speech is which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "shared understanding"
Example:
"The hired hands [workers] are not doing their jobs."
Similarly, "mouths to feed" for hungry people, "white hair" for an elderly person, "The Press" for news media.
white-collar criminals
9/11 (You can understand this example well, in a sentence 9/11 refers to what?? To represent a whole by a part)
Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.
"I have to have this operation. It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain."
