Terms : Hide Images
| 14251727522 | allegory | The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning; usually moral truth or generalization about human existence | 0 | |
| 14251734590 | alliteration | The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words; reinforce meaning, unify ideas, supply a musical sound, echo the sense of passage | 1 | |
| 14251740799 | allusion | a direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place or work of art | 2 | |
| 14252088471 | ambiguity | The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage | 3 | |
| 14252091365 | analogy | a similar or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them; can make writing more vivid, imaginative or intellectually engaging | 4 | |
| 14252100700 | antecedent | A word, phrase or clause to which a pronoun refers | 5 | |
| 14252112225 | antithesis | the opposition or contrast of ideas; the direct opposite | 6 | |
| 14252113424 | aphorism | a terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth or a moral principle | 7 | |
| 14252122862 | apostrophe | a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction | 8 | |
| 14252133249 | atmosphere | the emotional nod created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described | 9 | |
| 14252142215 | caricature | a verbal description, the purpose of which is to exaggerate or distort, for comic effect, a person's distinctive physical features or other characteristics | 10 | |
| 14252159039 | clause | a grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb | 11 | |
| 14252169425 | independent/main clause | expresses a complete thought and can stand alone as a sentence | 12 | |
| 14252173300 | colloquial | the use of slang or informalities in speech or writing; not acceptable for formal writing; expresses local or regional dialects | 13 | |
| 14252182330 | colloquialism | typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation; gives a familiar tone | 14 | |
| 14252188632 | conceit | A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects; displays intellectual cleverness as a result of unusual comparisons being made | 15 | |
| 14262789966 | connotation | the non-literal, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning; ideas, emotions or attitudes | 16 | |
| 14262794515 | denotation | the strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude or color | 17 | |
| 14262802346 | diction | related to style, diction refers to the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness or effectiveness | 18 | |
| 14262898836 | didactic | Greek for teaching or instructing of moral and ethical principles | 19 | |
| 14262911218 | euphemism | Greek for "god speech"; agreeable or less offensive substitute for an unpleasant word or concept; used for ironic understatement | 20 | |
| 14262920581 | extended metaphor | developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work | 21 | |
| 14262923978 | figurative language | writing that is not intended to be literal; usually imaginative and vivid | 22 | |
| 14262926654 | figure of speech | device used to produce figurative language; compared dissimilar things | 23 | |
| 14262932062 | generic conventions | traditions and helps define for each genre | 24 | |
| 14262939181 | genre | major category into which a literary work fits; flexible term that has many subdivisions | 25 | |
| 14262948456 | fiction | novels and short stories | 26 | |
| 14262950370 | nonfiction | essays and biographies | 27 | |
| 14262952471 | poetry | divided into lyric, dramatic, narrative, epic, etc. | 28 | |
| 14262955633 | homily | term literally means "sermon"; includes serious talk, speech or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice | 29 | |
| 14262960816 | hyperbole | Greek for "overshoot"; figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement; produces irony | 30 | |
| 14262966211 | imagery | sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion or represent abstractions; physically, it relates to the five senses | 31 | |
| 14262978057 | inference/infer | to draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented | 32 | |
| 14276734590 | invective | an emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using abusive language | 33 | |
| 14276780874 | irony/ironic | the contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant; the difference between what appears to be and what is actually true; used to create poignancy or humor | 34 | |
| 14276803059 | verbal irony | when the words literally state the writer's meaning | 35 | |
| 14276840651 | situational irony | when events turn out the opposite of what was expected; when what the characters and readers think ought to happen is not what does happen | 36 | |
| 14276844414 | dramatic irony | when facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience or other characters in the work | 37 | |
| 14276848856 | litotes | a form of understatement that involves making an affirmative point by denying its opposite | 38 | |
| 14276876870 | non-periodic sentence | A type of sentence in which the main idea comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units such as phrases and clauses | 39 | |
| 14276889180 | loose sentence | A complex sentence in which the main clause comes first and the subordinate clause follows | 40 | |
| 14276891483 | metaphor | a figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution of one for the other, suggesting some similarity; makes writing vivid, imaginative, thought provoking and meaningful | 41 | |
| 14276903395 | meonymy | Greek for "changed label" or "substitute name"; figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it | 42 | |
| 14276968676 | mood | the prevailing setting, tone and events that effect the atmosphere or emotional aura of a work; similar to tone and atmosphere | 43 | |
| 14276980550 | narrative | the telling of a story or an account of an event or series of events | 44 | |
| 14276982036 | onomatopoeia | a figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words | 45 | |
| 14276988456 | oxymoron | Greek for "pointedly foolish"; a figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms to suggest a paradox | 46 | |
| 14276992695 | paradox | a statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity | 47 | |
| 14276996273 | parallelism | Greek for "beside one another"; a.k.a parallel construction or structure; refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences or graphs to give structural similarity | 48 | |
| 14277008292 | anaphora | a sub-type of parallelism; when the exact repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines or sentences | 49 | |
| 14277012828 | parody | a work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect or ridicule; exploits author's expression; if written poorly, it offers ineffectual imitation | 50 | |
| 14277023055 | pedantic | an adjective that describes words, phrases or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic or bookish | 51 | |
| 14277027484 | periodic sentence | the opposite of loose sentence, that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end; an independent clause that comes before a phrase or clause that cannot stand alone; add emphasis and structural variety | 52 | |
| 14277060925 | personification | a figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts, animals or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes or emotions | 53 | |
| 14277064754 | pont of view | from which the story is told; address the author's attitude; two general divisions | 54 | |
| 14277066738 | first person narrator | tells the story with the pronoun: "I"; can be protagonist, a secondary character or observer | 55 | |
| 14277071512 | third person narrator | relates the events with the pronoun "he", "she" and "it"; two main subdivisions | 56 | |
| 14277077865 | third person omniscients | the narrator with godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts and actions of any or all characters | 57 | |
| 14277081991 | third person limited omniscient | the narrator presents the feelings and | 58 | |
| 14277103321 | prose | one of the major divisions of genre; refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms; the printer determines the length of the line; in poetry, the poet determines the length of the line | 59 | |
| 14277121542 | repetition | the duplication, either exact or approximate, of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence or grammatical pattern | 60 | |
| 14277128132 | rhetoric | Greek for "orator"; terms describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently and persuasively | 61 | |
| 14277131385 | rhetorical modes | the flexible terms describes the variety, conventions and purpose of the major kinds of writing; four common "modes of discourse" | 62 | |
| 14277148200 | expositions | to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence and appropriate discussion; AP language exam essay questions are expository topics | 63 | |
| 14277158557 | argumentation | to prove the validity of an idea or point of view by presenting sound reasoning, discussion and argument that thoroughly convince the reader | 64 | |
| 14277163060 | persuasive | is a type of argumentation having an additional aim or urging form of action | 65 | |
| 14277166351 | description | to recreate, invent or visually present a person, place, event or action so that the reader can picture that being described; engages all five sense or may be straightforward; objective or highly emotional on subjective | 66 | |
| 14277173763 | narration | to tell a story of an event or series of events; frequently uses the tools of descriptive writing | 67 | |
| 14314283464 | sarcasm | Greek for "to tear flesh"; involves bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something; use irony as a device; can be witty and insightful but can cruel | 68 | |
| 14314312448 | satire | targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule; work that aims to reform human behavior; thought provoking and insightful | 69 | |
| 14314337659 | smeantics | branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations and their relation to one another | 70 | |
| 14314428161 | Style | evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language and other literary devices; classification comparison which reflects a historical period | 71 | |
| 14314559449 | subject complement | word or clause that follows a linking verb and complements or completes the subject of the sentence | 72 | |
| 14314564470 | Predicate nominative | (n.) a group of nouns or noun clause that renames the subject; follows a linking verb and is located in the predicate of the sentence | 73 | |
| 14314571557 | Predicate adjective | (adj.) a group of adjectives or clause that follows a linking verb; modifies or describes a sentence or subject | 74 | |
| 14314577614 | subordinate cluase | word group contains both a subject and a verb, but cannot stand alone and does not express complete thoughts | 75 | |
| 14314699238 | dependent clause | relies on the main clause to complete its meaning | 76 | |
| 14314701744 | syllogism | Greek for "reckoning together" is a deductive system of formal logic that presents two premise that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion | 77 | |
| 14314784244 | major premise | the first part of a syllogism, consisting of a general statement about the subject of your argument | 78 | |
| 14314785591 | minor premise | a statement about a specific case related to the general characteristics of the major premise | 79 | |
| 14314852146 | symbol/symbolism | generally anything that represents itself and stands for something else; usually concrete as an object, action character or scene | 80 | |
| 14314873016 | natural symbols | objects and occurrences from nature to symbolize ideas commonly associated with them | 81 | |
| 14314875767 | conventional symbols | have been invested with meaning by a group or religious symbols | 82 | |
| 14314880614 | literary symbols | can be conventional in the sense that they are found in a verity or works and are more recognized | 83 | |
| 14314892180 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which part of something is used to represent the whole or occasionally the whole is used to represent a part | 84 | |
| 14314905691 | Synesthesia | when one kind of sensory stimulus evokes the subjective experience of another | 85 | |
| 14314949975 | syntax | the way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses and sentences; similar to diction, but diction refer to the individual words | 86 | |
| 14315049013 | theme | the central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life; usual is unstated in fictional works; non-fiction may be directly state in expository or argumentative writing | 87 | |
| 14315063425 | thesis | expository writing; the sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning or position; usually judged by analyzing how accurately, effectively and thoroughly a writer has proven | 88 | |
| 14315071303 | tone | similar to mood; describes the author's attitude toward his material, audience or both; easier to determine in spoken language than in one that is written | 89 | |
| 14315099311 | transition | a word or phrase that links different ideas; especially in expository and argumentative writing; effectively signal a shift from one idea to another | 90 | |
| 14315104792 | understatement | the ironic minimizing of fact; presents something as less significant than it is; the effect can frequently be humorous and emphatic; opposite of hyperbole | 91 | |
| 14315115816 | witty | intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights; humorous while suggesting the speaker's verbal power; speed of understanding and quick perception | 92 |
