Terms : Hide Images
| 12055305075 | allegory | The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning. | 0 | |
| 12055305076 | alliteration | The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words. | 1 | |
| 12055305077 | allusion | A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known. | 2 | |
| 12055305078 | ambiguity | The multiple meanings of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage | 3 | |
| 12055305079 | anadiplosis | The repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause. | 4 | |
| 12055305080 | analogy | A similarity or comparison between two different things. | 5 | |
| 12055305081 | anaphora | One of the devices of repetition, in which the same expression is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences. | 6 | |
| 12057708969 | anastrophe | Inversion of the natural or usual word order | 7 | |
| 12055305082 | anecdote | A short narrative detailing particulars of an interesting episode or event. | 8 | |
| 12055305083 | antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. | 9 | |
| 12056620907 | antithesis | A figure of speech in which an opposition or contrast of ideas is expressed by the parallelism of words that are the opposites of, or strongly contrasted with, each other, such as "speech is silver, but silence is golden." | 10 | |
| 12055305084 | aphorism | a terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth or a moral principle | 11 | |
| 12055305085 | apostrophe | A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction. (cannot answer) | 12 | |
| 12055305086 | atmosphere | The emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work. | 13 | |
| 12055413476 | chiasmus | a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases | 14 | |
| 12055305087 | clause | A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. | 15 | |
| 12055305088 | colloquial/colloquialism | The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. | 16 | |
| 12055305089 | coherence | The principle demanding the arrangement of composition so that the meaning of the whole may be clear and intelligible. | 17 | |
| 12055305090 | conceit | A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly different objects. | 18 | |
| 12055305091 | connotation | The nonliteral, associative meaning of a word that may involve ideas, emotions, or attitude. | 19 | |
| 12055305092 | denotation | The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color. | 20 | |
| 12055305093 | diction | Refers to the writer's word choice. | 21 | |
| 12055305094 | didactic | Teaching of moral or ethical principles (Greek word) | 22 | |
| 12055305095 | epistrophe | The opposite of anaphora, repetition at the end of successive clauses. | 23 | |
| 12055305096 | ethos | A persuasive device by which the writer tries to sway the audience's attention to any given work by establishing credibility in the reader. | 24 | |
| 12055305097 | euphemism | A less offensive substitute for a generally unpleasant word or concept. | 25 | |
| 12055305098 | exposition | In essays, one of the four chief types of composition whose purpose is to explain something. | 26 | |
| 12055305099 | extended metaphor | A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently throughout a work. | 27 | |
| 12055305100 | figurative language | Writing or speech that is meant to be imaginative and vivid, not literal. | 28 | |
| 12055305101 | figure of speech | A device used to produce figurative language. Includes apostrophe, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, and understatement. | 29 | |
| 12055305102 | generic conventions | Describe traditions for each genre and help to classify writing into a particular genre. | 30 | |
| 12055305103 | genre | The major category into which a literary work fits. The basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama but many subdivisions exist as genres themselves. | 31 | |
| 12055305104 | homily | This term literally means "sermon", but can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice. | 32 | |
| 12055305105 | hyperbole | A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. | 33 | |
| 12055346682 | hypophora | A figure of speech in which the speaker poses a question and then answers the question. | 34 | |
| 12055305106 | imagery | The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstraction. | 35 | |
| 12055305107 | inference/infer | To draw a reasonable conclusion from given information. | 36 | |
| 12055305108 | invective | A verbal attack using strong, abusive language. | 37 | |
| 12055305109 | irony/ironic | The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. (1) Verbal irony: The words literally state the opposite of the writer's true meaning. (2) Situational irony: Events turn out the opposite of what was expected. (3) Dramatic irony: Facts or events are unknown to a character in a story or play, but known to the reader or audience. | 38 | |
| 12055305110 | juxtaposition | Placing dissimilar items, descriptions, or ideas close together or side by side, especially for comparison and contrast. | 39 | |
| 12055365863 | litotes | A form of understatement that involves making an affirmative point by denying its opposite | 40 | |
| 12055305111 | logos | A persuasive device by which the writer tries to sway the audience's attention to any given work by employing logical reasoning along with clear, well-thought out examples and details. | 41 | |
| 12055305112 | loose sentence | A type of sentence in which the main idea comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units such as phrases and clauses. | 42 | |
| 12055305113 | metaphor | A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution for one another, suggesting some similarity. | 43 | |
| 12055305114 | metonymy | A figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. | 44 | |
| 12055305115 | mood | 1. Deals with verbal units and the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work. | 45 | |
| 12055305116 | narrative | The telling of a story or an account of an event or series of events. | 46 | |
| 12055305117 | onomatopoeia | A figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. | 47 | |
| 12055305118 | oxymoron | A figure of speech wherein the author groups contradictory terms to suggest a paradox. | 48 | |
| 12055305119 | paradox | A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth. | 49 | |
| 12055305120 | parallelism | Refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. | 50 | |
| 12055305121 | parody | A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. | 51 | |
| 12055305122 | pathos | A persuasive device in which the writer tries to sway the audience's attention to any given work by playing on the reader's emotions. | 52 | |
| 12055305123 | pedantic | An adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or bookish. | 53 | |
| 12055305124 | periodic sentence | A sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end and is followed by a dependent clause. | 54 | |
| 12055305125 | 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. | 55 | |
| 12055305126 | point of view | The perspective from which a story is told. (1) 1st person narrator: tells the story with the first person pronoun, "I", and is a character in the story (protagonist or observer). (2) 3rd person narrative: tells the story with the third person pronouns, "he", "she", and "it". (Omniscient: presents the thoughts and actions of all characters. Limited omniscient: presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character. | 56 | |
| 12055305127 | predicate adjective | One type of subject complement - an adjective, group of adjectives, or adjective clause that describes the subject. | 57 | |
| 12055305128 | predicate nominative | A second type of subject complement - a noun, group of nouns, or noun clause that renames the subject. | 58 | |
| 12055305129 | prose | One of the major divisions of genre which refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms. | 59 | |
| 12055305130 | pun | A play on words, either on different senses of the same word or on the similar sense or sound of different words. | 60 | |
| 12055305131 | repetition | The duplication of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern. | 61 | |
| 12055305132 | rhetor | The speaker who uses elements of rhetoric effectively in oral or written test. | 62 | |
| 12055305133 | rhetoric | Describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively. (Greek: "orator") | 63 | |
| 12055305134 | rhetorical modes | Describes the variety, the conventions, and the purposes of the major kinds of writing. The four most common: (1) Exposition: to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion. (2) Argumentation: to prove the validity of an idea, or point of view, by presenting sound reasoning, discussion, and argument that thoroughly convince the reader. Persuasion: a type of argumentation having an additional aim of urging some form of action. (3) Description: to re-create, invent, or visually present a person, place, event, or action so that the reader can picture that being described. (4) Narration: to tell a story or narrate an event or series of events. | 64 | |
| 12055305135 | sarcasm | Bitter language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something. (Greek: "tear to flesh") | 65 | |
| 12055305136 | satire | A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule. | 66 | |
| 12055305137 | semantics | The branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations, and their relation to one another. | 67 | |
| 12055305138 | simile | A comparison of two unlike things using the words like or as. | 68 | |
| 12055305139 | style | 1. An evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices. 2. Classification of authors to a group and comparison of similar authors. | 69 | |
| 12055305140 | subject complement | The word or clause that follows a linking verb and complements the subject of the sentence by either renaming it or describing it. | 70 | |
| 12055305141 | subordinate clause | A clause that cannot stand alone. (dependent clause) | 71 | |
| 12055305142 | syllogism | A deductive system of formal logic that presents two statements, one "major" and one "minor", that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion. | 72 | |
| 12055305143 | symbol/symbolism | Anything that represents itself and stands for something else. (1) Natural symbols: objects and occurrences from nature to represent ideas commonly associated with them. (2) Conventional symbols: those that have been invested with meaning by a group. (3) Literary symbols: found in a variety of works and are generally recognized. | 73 | |
| 12055305144 | synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole of a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it. | 74 | |
| 12055305145 | syntax | The way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. | 75 | |
| 12055305146 | theme | The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. | 76 | |
| 12055305147 | thesis | In expository writing, the sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or position. | 77 | |
| 12055305148 | tone | Describes the author's attitude toward his material, the audience, or both. | 78 | |
| 12055305149 | transition | A word or phrase that links different things. | 79 | |
| 12055305150 | trope | A figure of speech involving a change of sense - a use of the word in a sense other than its proper or literal one. | 80 | |
| 12055305151 | understatement | A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is. | 81 | |
| 12055305152 | undertone | An attitude that may lie under the apparent tone of the piece. | 82 | |
| 12055305153 | unreliable narrator | An untrustworthy or naive commentator on events and characters in a story. | 83 | |
| 12055305154 | wit | Intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights. | 84 | |
| 12055305155 | zeugma | A word that governs two other words not related in meaning. | 85 |
