Terms : Hide Images
| 11128714223 | allegory | story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities | 0 | |
| 11128727353 | alliteration | repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together | 1 | |
| 11128735736 | allusion | reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or other branch of culture; an indirect reference to something | 2 | |
| 11128754616 | ambiguity | deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work; an event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way | 3 | |
| 11128762546 | analogy | comparison made between two things to show how they are alike | 4 | |
| 11128768181 | anaphora | repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row; this is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer's point more coherent | 5 | |
| 11128831012 | anastrophe | inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a sentence; purpose is rhythm or emphasis or euphony; it is a fancy word for inversion. | 6 | |
| 11128846247 | anecdote | brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something, often shows character of an individual | 7 | |
| 11128859725 | antagonist | opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a story; it is not always a human character | 8 | |
| 11128871943 | antimetabole | repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order; is called chiasmus in poetry | 9 | |
| 11128889967 | antithesis | balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure | 10 | |
| 11128904178 | antihero | central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with heroes; may lack courage, grace, intelligence, or moral scruples | 11 | |
| 11128918324 | anthropomorphism | attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object; another name for personification | 12 | |
| 11128928294 | aphorism | brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of a principle or accepted general truth | 13 | |
| 11128939404 | apostrophe | calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea; is also called an invocation if the person is calling to a god or goddess | 14 | |
| 11128962499 | apposition | placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first (often set off by a colon) | 15 | |
| 11128975468 | assonance | repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds, especially in words that are together | 16 | |
| 11128988288 | asyndeton | commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus emphasizing the parts equally | 17 | |
| 11128994841 | balance | constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and importance | 18 | |
| 11129004794 | characterization | the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character | 19 | |
| 11469301396 | indirect characterization | the author reveals to the reader what the character is like by describing how the character looks and dresses, by letting the reader hear what the character says, by revealing the character's private thoughts and feelings, by revealing the characters effect on other people (showing how other characters feel or behave toward the character), or by showing the character in action | 20 | |
| 11469318138 | direct characterization | the author tells the reader directly what the character is like | 21 | |
| 11469326150 | static character | a character who does not change much throughout the course of a story | 22 | |
| 11469340131 | dynamic character | a character who changes in some important way as a result of the story's action | 23 | |
| 11469347431 | flat character | a character that has only one or two personality traits; a one-dimensional character | 24 | |
| 11469360345 | round character | a character that has multiple personality traits; a complex, multi-dimensional character | 25 | |
| 11469366759 | chiasmus | a type of rhetorical balance in poetry in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but the parts are reversed; also called antimetabole | 26 | |
| 11469382776 | cliché | a word, phrase, or trope that has become lifeless because of overuse | 27 | |
| 11469389952 | colloquialism | a word or phrase used in everyday conversation and informal writing, but inappropriate for formal situations | 28 | |
| 11469398474 | comedy | a story that invokes humor and/or ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main characters | 29 | |
| 11469409146 | conceit | an elaborate or expended metaphor that compares two things that are strongly different | 30 | |
| 11469417964 | confessional poetry | a 20th century term used to describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet's life | 31 | |
| 11469424163 | conflict | the struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story | 32 | |
| 11469427614 | external conflict | a conflict that exists between two people, between a person and nature or a machine, or between a person a whole society | 33 | |
| 11469435602 | internal conflict | a conflict that involves opposing forces within a person's mind | 34 | |
| 11469443223 | connotation | the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition | 35 | |
| 11469485884 | couplet | two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry | 36 | |
| 11469451789 | dialect | a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area | 37 | |
| 11469462723 | diction | a speaker or writer's choice of words | 38 | |
| 11469464886 | didactic | a form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral, or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking | 39 | |
| 11951200275 | elegy | a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died | 40 | |
| 11951211593 | eulogy | a speech of great praise or commemoration, often about someone who has died | 41 | |
| 11951223205 | epanalepsis | a device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated at both the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence | 42 | |
| 11951251319 | epic | a long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society | 43 | |
| 11951279837 | epigraph | a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work that suggests the theme | 44 | |
| 11951290271 | epistrophe | a device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences; opposite of anaphora | 45 | |
| 11951309709 | epithet | an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality | 46 | |
| 11951323761 | essay | a short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject | 47 | |
| 11951329404 | argumentation | the use of logic, ethics, and emotional appeals to develop an effective means to convince the reader to think or act in a certain way | 48 | |
| 11951342206 | persuasion | method of writing that relies more on emotional appeals than on facts | 49 | |
| 11951355249 | argument | form of persuasion that appeals to reason instead of emotion to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way | 50 | |
| 11951370848 | causal relationship | form of argumentation in which the writer claims that one thing results from another, often used as part of a logical argument | 51 | |
| 11951378533 | description | a form of discourse that uses language to create a mood or emotion | 52 | |
| 11951383716 | exposition | a form of discourse that explains or sets forth something; often used in introductions | 53 | |
| 11951402391 | narrative | a form of discourse that tells about a series of events; a story | 54 | |
| 11951407238 | explication | act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language | 55 | |
| 11951419658 | fable | a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life | 56 | |
| 11951424750 | farce | a type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations | 57 | |
| 11951439798 | figurative language | words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Similes and metaphors are common forms | 58 | |
| 11951444473 | flashback | a scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time | 59 | |
| 11951457552 | foil | a character who acts as contrast to another character | 60 | |
| 12335388568 | foreshadowing | the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in the plot | 61 | |
| 12335393577 | free verse | poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme | 62 | |
| 12335399048 | hyperbole | a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement | 63 | |
| 12335404431 | imagery | the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, thing, place, or experience | 64 | |
| 12335411162 | inversion | the reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase | 65 | |
| 12335415697 | irony | a discrepancy between appearances and reality; a subversion of expectations | 66 | |
| 12335421790 | verbal irony | type of irony that occurs when someone says one thing but really means something else | 67 | |
| 12335426421 | situational irony | type of irony that takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what really does happen | 68 | |
| 12335433254 | dramatic irony | type of irony mostly used for stage purposes, where a character in the play or story thinks that one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows otherwise | 69 | |
| 12335448127 | juxtaposition | poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit | 70 | |
| 12335465319 | local color | a term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape | 71 | |
| 12335485272 | loose sentence | a sentence in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units | 72 | |
| 12335493636 | lyric poem | a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker or author | 73 | |
| 12335500704 | metaphor | a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison such as like, as, than, or resembles | 74 | |
| 12335514252 | implied metaphor | a metaphor that does not explicitly state the two terms of comparison | 75 | |
| 12335519997 | extended metaphor | a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it | 76 | |
| 12335528439 | dead metaphor | a metaphor that has been overused to the point of extinction, or where the comparison no longer has vividity | 77 | |
| 12335536642 | mixed metaphor | a metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible | 78 | |
| 12335540862 | metonymy | a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing is referred to by something closely associated with it | 79 | |
| 12335548904 | mood | an atmosphere created by a writer's diction and selective details | 80 | |
| 12742459794 | motif | a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work | 81 | |
| 12742473675 | motivation | the reasons for a character's behavior | 82 | |
| 12742478810 | onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sounds echo their sense | 83 | |
| 12742487002 | oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase | 84 | |
| 12742498023 | parable | a relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson about how to lead a good life | 85 | |
| 12742506379 | paradox | a statement that appears self-contradictory, but reveals a kind of truth | 86 | |
| 12742515009 | parallel structure | the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures | 87 | |
| 12742525981 | parody | a work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of a writer's style | 88 | |
| 12742535725 | periodic | a sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements | 89 | |
| 12742559379 | personification | a figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes | 90 | |
| 12742574099 | plot | the series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline | 91 | |
| 12742593504 | exposition | introduces characters, situation, and setting | 92 | |
| 12742601385 | rising action | complications in conflict and situations | 93 | |
| 12742606220 | climax | the point in a plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, interest | 94 | |
| 12742617221 | resolution | the conclusion of a story, when all or most of the conflicts have been settled; often called the denouement | 95 | |
| 12742634137 | point of view | the vantage point from which the writer tells the story | 96 | |
| 12742645202 | first person point of view | one of the characters tells the story | 97 | |
| 12742648814 | third person point of view | an unknown narrator, tells the story, but this narrator zooms in to focus on the thoughts and feelings of only one character | 98 | |
| 12742677328 | omniscient point of view | an omniscient or all knowing narrator tells the story , also also using third person pronouns; this narrator focuses on the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters | 99 | |
| 12742859046 | objective point of view | a narrator who is totally impersonal and just tells the story, with no comment on any characters or events | 100 | |
| 13463540590 | polysyndeton | a sentence that uses conjunctions with NO commas to separate items in a series | 101 | |
| 13463548301 | protagonist | the central character in a story that initiates or drives the action | 102 | |
| 13463555587 | pun | a play on words based on the multiple meanings of a single word or an words that sound alike but mean different things | 103 | |
| 13463562129 | quatrain | a poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit | 104 | |
| 13463571013 | refrain | a word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem | 105 | |
| 13463575217 | rhythm | a rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language | 106 | |
| 13463583314 | rhetoric | art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse | 107 | |
| 13463587613 | rhetorical question | a sentence of interrogation that is asked for an effect rather than an explicit answer | 108 | |
| 13463594738 | romance | a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes in a successful quest | 109 | |
| 13463600307 | satire | a type of writing that ridicules or parodies the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change or prove a point | 110 | |
| 13463610327 | simile | an explicit comparison of two unlike things, using words such as "like", "as", "than", or "resembles" | 111 | |
| 13463625055 | soliloquy | a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage | 112 | |
| 13463628988 | stereotype | a fixed and often exaggerated idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices | 113 | |
| 13463645476 | stream of consciousness | a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character's mind | 114 | |
| 13463651892 | style | the distinctive way in which a writer uses language: a writer's use of diction, tone, and syntax | 115 | |
| 13463658121 | suspense | a feeling of uncertainly and curiosity about what will happen next in a story | 116 | |
| 13463666938 | symbol | a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself | 117 | |
| 13463673188 | synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole | 118 | |
| 13463676359 | syntactic fluency | the ability to create a variety of sentence structures, appropriately complex and/or varied in length | 119 | |
| 13463686742 | syntactic permutation | Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved; often difficult to follow | 120 | |
| 13463694989 | tall tale | an outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable | 121 | |
| 13463697894 | telegraphic sentence | a sentence shorter than five words in length | 122 | |
| 13463699907 | theme | the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work; the main idea in a work | 123 | |
| 13463702348 | tone | the attitude a writer takes toward the audience, a subject, or a character | 124 | |
| 13463709776 | tragedy | a story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end | 125 | |
| 13463718594 | tricolon | a sentence of three parts of equal importance and length | 126 | |
| 13463726997 | understatement | a statement that says less than what is meant | 127 | |
| 13463731867 | unity | the ability for writing to be related to one central idea or organizing principle | 128 | |
| 13463739025 | vernacular | the language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality; also called regional dialect | 129 |
