| A | B |
|---|
| Alliteration | deliberate repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds, in successive words, for musical effect |
| Chiasmus | arrangement of words or phrases in a oppositional, ABBA order, often to emphasize some contrast or to create a word-picture |
| Ellipsis | omission of one or more words necessary to the sense of a sentence but easily understood from the context often a form of the verb sum |
| Enjambement | delay of the final word or phrase of a sentence (or clause) to the beginning of the following verse, to emphasize an idea or create suspense |
| Golden Line | a form of interlocked word order in which a verb is positioned in the middle of the verse, with adjectives preceding and nouns following in symmetrical arrangement |
| Hendiadys | use of two nouns connected by a conjunction (or occasionally a preposition), often instead of one modified noun expressing a single complex idea; the usual effect is to give equal prominence to an image that would ordinarily be subordinated, especially some quality of a person or thing |
| Ictus | the verse accent, or beat, occuring on the first syllable of each foot in the dactylic hexameter and the elegiac couplet |
| Caesura | a pause between words occurring within a metrical foot; the effect at the principal caesura in a line of verse (generally within the third foot, or in both the second and fourth, in the dactylic hexameter, and at the midpoint of the pentameter in the elegiac couplet) |
| Interlocked Word Order/Synchysis | arrangement of related pairs of words in an alternating ABAB pattern often emphasizing the close connection between two thoughts or images |
| Metonymy | a type of imagery in which one word, generally a noun, is employed to suggest another with which it is closely related |
| Personification | a type of imagery by which human traits are attributed to plants, animals, inanimate objects or abstract ideas |
| Transferred Epithet | application of an adjective to one noun when it properly applies to another, often involving personification and focusing special attention on the modified noun. |
| Tricolon Crescens: | a climactic series of three (or more) examples or illustrations, each (or at least the last) more fully developed or more intense than the preceding. |
| Polysyndeton | use of a greater number of conjunctions than usual or necessary, often to emplhasize the elements in a series. |
