LITERARY TERMS REVIEW
COMPARING TWO THINGS USING "LIKE" OR "AS"
SIMILE
A PLAY ON WORDS
PUN
A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.
UNDERSTATEMENT
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
Assonance
AN IMPLIED COMPARISON BETWEEN TWO DISSIMILAR THINGS THAT HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON
METAPHOR
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning.
IRONY
A statement that appears to contradict itself.
Paradox
Directly addressing a nonexistent person or an inanimate object as though it were a living being.
Apostrophe
REPETITION OF THE INITIAL CONSONANT SOUND
ALLITERATION
The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
Onomatopoeia
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
Anaphora
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
ANTITHESIS
USE OF EXAGGERATION FOR EFFECT
HYPERBOLE
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which a 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.
Metonymy
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
Chiasmus
A FIGURE OF SPEECH IN WHICH N INANIMATE OBJECT IS ENDOWED WITH HUMAN QUALITIES
PERSONIFICATION
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
Euphemism
A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole.
Synecdoche
A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
LITOTES