| A | B |
|---|
| Allegory | a narrative in which abstract ideas (such as Love, Rumor, Knowledge) figure as circumstances or persons usually to enforce a moral truth |
| Alliteration | repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence |
| Anaphora | the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines |
| Aposiopesis | a form of ellipse by which a speaker comes to an abrupt halt, seemingly overcome by passion (fear, excitement, etc.) or modesty |
| Apostrophe | a sudden turn from the general audience to address a specific group or person or personified abstraction absent or present |
| Assonance | repetition of the same sound in words close to each other |
| Asyndeton | lack of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words |
| Chiasmus | two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels (a-b-a-b) but in inverted order (a-b-b-a) |
| Ecphrasis | the literary description of a visual work of art |
| Ellipsis | omission of one or more words necessary to the sense |
| Enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of verse into the next line without a pause |
| Hendiadys | use of two words connected by a conjunction, instead of subordinating one to the other, to express a single complex idea |
| Hyperbole | exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect |
| Hysteron Proteron | inversion of the natural sequence of events, often meant to stress the event which, though later in time, is considered the more important |
| Irony | expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another |
| Litotes | understatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed |
| Metaphor | implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it |
| Metonymy | substitution of one word for another which it suggests |
| Onomatopoeia | use of words to imitate natural sounds; accommodation of sound to sense |
| Oxymoron | apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to contradict one another |
| Personification | attribution of personality to an impersonal thing |
| Pleonasm | use of superfluous or redundant words, often enriching the thought |
| Polysyndeton | the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses |
| Praeteritio (=paraleipsis) | pretended omission for rhetorical effect |
| Prolepsis | the anticipation, in adjectives or nouns, of the result of the action of a verb; also, the positioning of a relative clause before its antecedent |
| Prosopopoeia | A figure of speech in which an absent or imaginary person is represented as speaking |
| Simile | an explicit comparison between two things using 'like' or 'as' |
| Synchysis | interlocked word order (a-b-a-b) |
| Synecdoche | understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of metonymy) |
| Tmesis | The separation of the parts of a compound word by the intervention of one or more words |
| Transferred Epithet (Hypallage) | grammatical agreement of a word with another word which it does not logically qualify |
| Tricolon Crescens | Series of three members, each successively with more syllables |
| Zeugma | two different words linked to a verb or an adjective which is strictly appropriate to only one of them |
