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| 2327490690 | Antithesis | A figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Ex: "too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell" or "place your virtues on a pedestal; put your vices under a rock" | 0 | |
| 2327490691 | Alliteration | The repetition of sounds. Can reinforce meaning, unify ideas, and/or supply a musical sound. Ex: "she sells sea shells" | 1 | |
| 2327491646 | Allusion | A direct or indirect reference to something that is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art. | 2 | |
| 2327491647 | Analogy | A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them. Can explain something unfamiliar by associating it with, or pointing out its similarity to, something more familiar. | 3 | |
| 2327491686 | Appositive | A noun or noun phrase that renames another noun right beside it. | 4 | |
| 2327492945 | Anaphora | Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines. | 5 | |
| 2327493879 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. The effect may add familiarity or emotional intensity. Ex: "Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee" | 6 | |
| 2327496348 | Aphorism | A terse statement of known authorship that expresses a general truth or moral principle. If the authorship is unknown, the statement is considered to be a folk proverb. Can be a memorable summation of the author's point. | 7 | |
| 2327496349 | Bandwagon | This fallacy occurs when evidence boils down to "everybody's doing it, so it must be a good thing to do" | 8 | |
| 2327497124 | Begging the Question | Logical fallacy: making a statement that assumes the issue being argued has already been decided. | 9 | |
| 2327497125 | Cause and Effect | Argumentation by cause and effect means that particular event is caused or affected by another event. | 10 | |
| 2327498389 | Deductive | Reasoning which begins with a general statement and moves to a particular instance. | 11 | |
| 2327498390 | Ethos | Greek for "character". Speakers appeal to ethos to demonstrate that they are credible and trustworthy to speak on a given topic. Ethos is established by both who you are and what you say. | 12 | |
| 2327498391 | Fallacy | Logical fallacies are potential vulnerabilities or weaknesses in an argument. They often arise from a failure to make a logical connection between the claim and the evidence used to support it. | 13 | |
| 2327499131 | Inductive | Reasoning which begins with particular instances and moves to general statements. | 14 | |
| 2327499132 | Logos | Greek for "embodied thought". Speakers appeal to logos, or reason, by offering clear, rational ideas and using specific details, examples, facts, statistics, or expert testimony to back them up. | 15 | |
| 2327499133 | Parody | A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. As comedy, parody distorts or exaggerates the distinctive features of the original. | 16 | |
| 2327499134 | Pathos | Greek for "suffering" or "experience". Speakers appeal to pathos to emotionally motivate their audience. | 17 | |
| 2327500385 | Premise/Claim | A claim states the argument's main idea or position. Differs from a topic or subject in that a claim has to be arguable. | 18 | |
| 2327500386 | Repetition | The duplication, either exact or approximate, of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern. When repetition is done poorly, it bores, but when it's well done, it links and emphasizes ideas while allowing the reader the comfort of recognizing something familiar. | 19 | |
| 2327501186 | Rhetorical Shift | A rhetorical shift is a change in linguistic tone that can be signaled by a transition word like "but", "however", or "then". Rhetorical shifts can be used as a literary device, but the term can be applied more broadly, such as when a discussion of someone or something changes tone -- for example media perception of a politician turning from positive or negative. | 20 | |
| 2327501187 | Synthesis | Combining two or more ideas in order to create something more complex in support of a new idea. | 21 | |
| 2327501878 | Euphemism | From the Greek for "good speech", euphemisms are a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts. Ex: "earthly remains" rather than "corpse" | 22 | |
| 2327501879 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. | 23 | |
| 2327501880 | Imagery | The sensory details related to the five senses: visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory imagery. | 24 | |
| 2327502847 | Irony | Referring to the recognition of a reality different from the masking appearance. | 25 | |
| 2327502848 | Metaphor | An implied analogy which imaginatively identifies one object with another and ascribes to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second or invests the first with emotional or imaginative qualities associated with the second. | 26 | |
| 2327503995 | Metonymy/Synecdoche | A figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. Ex: speak of the king by saying "the crown" | 27 | |
| 2327505055 | Onomatopoeia | A literary device in which the sound of a word is related to its meaning -- for example, "buzz" and "moan". | 28 | |
| 2327506585 | Oxymoron | Juxtaposed words with seemingly contradictory meanings -- for example, "jumbo shrimp". | 29 | |
| 2327506586 | Paradox | A statement that seems untrue on the surface but is true nevertheless. Ex: "standing may be more tiring than walking" | 30 | |
| 2327507434 | 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. | 31 | |
| 2327507435 | Pun | A form of wit, not necessarily funny, involving a play on a word with two or more meanings. | 32 | |
| 2327507436 | Simile | An explicit comparison, normally using "like", "as", or "if". | 33 | |
| 2327509369 | Understatement/Liotes | The ironic minimizing of fact, understatement presents something as less significant than it is. The effect can frequently be humorous and emphatic. Understatement is the opposite of hyperbole. | 34 | |
| 2327509370 | Declarative Sentence | Make statements. They tell something. | 35 | |
| 2327510153 | Ellipsis | The omission of a word or words. It refers to constructions in which words are left out of a sentence but the sentence can still be understood. | 36 | |
| 2327511180 | Exclamatory Sentence | Communicate a strong emotion or surprise. | 37 | |
| 2327511181 | Imperative Sentence | Make commands. They often contain an understood subject. | 38 | |
| 2327512786 | Interrogative Sentence | Ask questions. | 39 | |
| 2327512787 | Parallelism | It refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. | 40 | |
| 2327514196 | Periodic Sentence | A sentence with modifying elements included before or in the middle of the verb and/or complement. Main part of the sentence next to the period. | 41 | |
| 2327514197 | Loose Sentence | A sentence that adds modifying elements after the subject, verb, and complement. Main part of the sentence at the beginning of the sentence. | 42 | |
| 2327514198 | Connotation | The nonliteral, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning. May involve ideas, emotions, or attitudes. | 43 | |
| 2327515061 | Denotation | The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color. | 44 | |
| 2327515062 | Dialect | A particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group. | 45 | |
| 2327515063 | Diction | Related to style, diction refers to the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness. | 46 | |
| 2327515872 | Jargon | Special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand. | 47 | |
| 2327517404 | Juxtaposition | Placement of two things closely together to emphasize similarities or differences. | 48 | |
| 2327517405 | Theme | The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. Usually, theme is unstated in fictional works, but in nonfiction the theme may be directly stated, especially in expository or argumentative writing. | 49 | |
| 2327517406 | Thesis | In expository writing, the thesis statement is the sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or proposition. | 50 | |
| 2327518101 | Invective | Harsh, abusive language directed at a person or cause. Vituperative writing. | 51 | |
| 2327518705 | Homily | This term literally means "sermon", but more informally, it can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice. | 52 |
