Literary Terms: Literary Devices & Figures of Speech - Advanced

If you want to understand the tools and techniques that great writers use, learn these literary devices and figures of speech.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. allegory
    a style in which characters and events are symbolic
  2. alliteration
    use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word
  3. allusion
    passing reference or indirect mention
  4. ambiguity
    unclearness by virtue of having more than one meaning
  5. anachronism
    locating something at a time when it couldn't have existed
  6. analogy
    drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity
  7. anaphora
    repetition of a word or phrase to begin successive clauses
  8. anticlimax
    a change from a serious subject to a disappointing one
  9. antithesis
    the juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas for balance
  10. aphorism
    a short pithy instructive saying
  11. apostrophe
    an address to an absent or imaginary person
  12. apposition
    a relation between a word and a noun phrase that follows
  13. archaism
    the use of an outdated expression
  14. assonance
    the repetition of similar vowels in successive words
  15. asyndeton
    omission of conjunctions where they would normally be used
  16. bathos
    a change from a serious subject to a disappointing one
  17. caricature
    a representation of a person exaggerated for comic effect
  18. catharsis
    purging of emotional tensions
  19. chiasmus
    inversion in the second of two parallel phrases
  20. circumlocution
    an indirect way of expressing something
  21. cliche
    a trite or obvious remark
  22. consonance
    the repetition of sounds especially at the ends of words
  23. contradiction
    opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas
  24. deus ex machina
    an agent who appears unexpectedly to solve a difficulty
  25. double entendre
    a word or phrase with two meanings, one of which is indecent
  26. elision
    omission of a sound between two words
  27. ellipsis
    a mark indicating that words have been omitted
  28. encomium
    a formal expression of praise
  29. epigraph
    a quotation at the beginning of some piece of writing
  30. euphemism
    an inoffensive expression substituted for an offensive one
  31. flashback
    a transition in a story to an earlier event or scene
  32. foreshadowing
    the act of providing vague advance indications
  33. hyperbole
    extravagant exaggeration
  34. inversion
    the reversal of the normal order of words
  35. irony
    incongruity between what is expected and what occurs
  36. juxtaposition
    the act of positioning close together
  37. litotes
    understatement for rhetorical effect
  38. metaphor
    a figure of speech that suggests a non-literal similarity
  39. metonymy
    substituting the name of a feature for the name of the thing
  40. mimesis
    imitative or realistic representation in art and literature
  41. neologism
    a newly invented word or phrase
  42. non sequitur
    a conclusion that does not follow from the premises
  43. onomatopoeia
    using words that imitate the sound they denote
  44. oxymoron
    conjoined contradictory terms
  45. paradox
    a statement that contradicts itself
  46. parody
    a composition that imitates or misrepresents a style
  47. personification
    representing an abstract quality or idea as a human
  48. pleonasm
    using more words than necessary
  49. pun
    a humorous play on words
  50. repetition
    the continued use of the same word or word pattern
  51. sarcasm
    witty language used to convey insults or scorn
  52. satire
    witty language used to convey insults or scorn
  53. simile
    a figure of speech expressing a resemblance between things
  54. symbolism
    the practice of investing things with arbitrary meaning
  55. synecdoche
    using part of something to refer to the whole thing
  56. trope
    language used in a nonliteral sense
  57. understatement
    something said in a restrained way for ironic contrast
  58. verisimilitude
    the appearance of truth; the quality of seeming to be true
  59. zeugma
    rhetorical use of a word to govern two or more words
Created on Wed Dec 02 12:10:24 EST 2020 (updated Wed Dec 02 13:25:48 EST 2020)

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