| A | B |
|---|
| alliteration* | repetition of sound at the beginning of words |
| allegory* | a narrative in which abstract ideas figure as circumstances or persons, usually to enforce a moral truth. |
| anaphora* | repetition of the same words at the beginning of clauses or phrases. |
| praeteritio* | claiming to not mention or "pass over" something that one plans to say. |
| apostrophe* | address of an absent person or an abstraction, usually for pathetic effect. |
| aposiopesis* | the abrupt and deliberate pause in a sentence. |
| assonance | the recurrence of similar sounds |
| asyndeton* | omission of conjunctions in a closely related series |
| ecphrasis* | an apparent digression describing a place, connected at the end of the description to the main narrative by "hic" or "huc". |
| chiasmus* | arrangement of pairs in opposite order: ABBA word order |
| ellipsis* | omission of words understood but grammatically necessary |
| enjambment* | the running over of a sentence from one verse or couplet into another so that closely related words fall in different lines. |
| epithet | descriptive term or nickname |
| pleonasm* | use of unnecessary words. |
| hendiadys* | expressing an idea by two nouns instead of using a noun and agreeing adjective |
| hyperbole* | exaggeration |
| hysteron - proteron* | the reversal of the natural order of things |
| irony* | stating an apparent fact with the intention of expressing the opposite; a form of light sarcasm |
| litotes* | double negative or affirming something by denying the opposite |
| metaphor* | a direct comparison |
| metonymy* | the substitution of one word for another which it suggests; in Latin metonymy often uses proper names |
| onomatopoeia* | word whose sound suggests its meaning |
| oxymoron; paradox* | apparently contradictory words combined into a single expression |
| personification* | attributing human qualities to inanimate objects |
| polysyndeton* | use of unnecessary conjunctions |
| synchesis* | interlocked word order: ABAB |
| syncope | loss of letters by contraction |
| synecdoche* | part for the whole |
| tmesis* | separation of parts of a compound word |
| prolepsis* | Use of a word before it is appropriate in context. |
| transferred epithet* | a name that is appended to some act or quality of a person or thing |
| zeugma* | a condensed expression in which one word is made to stand for two or more ideas |
| prosopopoeia* | the assumption of another's persona for rhetorical or dramatic effect. |
| simile* | an expressed comparison, introduced by a word such as "similis", "qualis", or "velut" |
| tricolon crescens* | a three-part increase of emphasis or enlargement of meaning. |
| hyperbaton* | strategic separation of linked words for the purpose of emphasis |
| polyptoton* | repetition either of the same word in different forms of declension or conjugation or of different words with a close etymological relation |
