You Can Say That Again (Repetition)
The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.
Anaphora
A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis.
Hyperbole
A figure of speech in which words evoke the actual sound of the thing they refer to or describe.
Onomatopoeia
A type of fourteen-line poem, 140 syllable usually about love.
Sonnet
Inversion of the normal syntactic order of words.
Hyperbaton/Anastrophe
The repetition of a word or phrase in immediate succession.
Epizeuxis
A phrase that conveys a figurative meaning that is difficult or impossible to understand based solely on a literal interpretation of the words in the phrase.
Idiom
A figure of speech in which a hissing sound is created within a group of words through the repetition of "s" sounds.
Sibilance
A group of lines that form a smaller unit within a poem, like a paragraph
Stanza
This occurs when an author places two things side by side as a way of highlighting their differences.
Juxtaposition
Uses repetition at the end of independent clauses or sentences.
"Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Epistrophe/Epiphora
A figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other
Metaphor
A figure of speech in which the same sound repeats at the beginning of several words in a group of words
Alliteration
A type of poem that tells a story and was traditionally set to music. Very popular among hair metal bands in the 1980s. I hear you calling, Beth.
Ballad
A two-syllable metrical pattern in poetry in which a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable
Trochee
The repetition of a single word or phrase, separated by intervening words. It comes from the Greek word thiakhop, which means “cutting in two.”
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Diacope
A type of figurative language in which an object or concept is referred to not by its own name, but instead by the name of something closely associated with it. For example, in "Wall Street prefers lower taxes,"
Metonomy
A figure of speech in which the same vowel sound repeats within a group of words.
Assonance
A unit of two lines of poetry, especially lines that use the same or similar meter and form a rhyme.
Couplet
A two-syllable metrical pattern in poetry, favored by the bard himself, in which one unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable
Iamb
The repetition of words that derive from the same root word.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Polyptoton
A figure of speech that seems to contradict itself, but which, upon further examination, contains some kernel of truth or reason.
Paradox
This opposite of Euphony is a combination of words that sound harsh or unpleasant together, usually because they pack a lot of percussive or "explosive" consonants (like T, P, or K) into relatively little space.
Cacophony
A poem of nineteen lines, and which follows a strict form that consists of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by one quatrain (four-line stanza).
Villanelle
A figure of speech in which a word or group of words located at the end of one clause or sentence is repeated at or near the beginning of the following clause or sentence.
Anadiplosis