Terms : Hide Images
| 13670861362 | literal meaning | meaning derived by taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory; denotative | 0 | |
| 13670861363 | figurative meaning | meaning that is beyond the literal interpretation; associative or connotative meaning | 1 | |
| 13670861364 | ambiguity | a word, statement, or situation with two or more possible meanings | 2 | |
| 13670861365 | stress | a syllable uttered in a higher pitch—or with greater emphasis—than others | 3 | |
| 13670861366 | meter | a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry | 4 | |
| 13670861367 | foot | the basic unit of measurement of accentual-syllabic meter; usually contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable | 5 | |
| 13670861368 | iamb | a metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable; for example, the words "unite" and "provide" | 6 | |
| 13670861369 | trochee | a metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable; examples include "garden" and "highway." | 7 | |
| 13670861370 | dactyl | a metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables; the words "poetry" and "basketball" are examples | 8 | |
| 13670861371 | anapest | a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable; the words "underfoot" and "overcome" are examples | 9 | |
| 13670861372 | spondee | a metrical foot consisting of two accented syllables (as in "hog-wild") | 10 | |
| 13670861373 | trimeter | a line made up of three feet | 11 | |
| 13670861374 | tetrameter | a line made up of four feet | 12 | |
| 13670861375 | hexameter | a metrical line of six feet, most often dactylic | 13 | |
| 13670861376 | heptameter | a meter made up of seven feet and usually 14 syllables total | 14 | |
| 13670861377 | elision | the omission of unstressed syllables (e.g., "e're" for "ever," "t'other" for "the other"), usually to fit a metrical scheme | 15 | |
| 13670861378 | caesura | a stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause | 16 | |
| 13670861379 | end-stopped | a metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period | 17 | |
| 13670861380 | enjambment | the running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation | 18 | |
| 13670861381 | stanza | a grouping of lines separated from others in a poem | 19 | |
| 13670861382 | couplet | a pair of lines, usually rhymed | 20 | |
| 13670861383 | heroic couplet | a pair of rhymed, iambic pentameter lines; the last two lines of an Elizabethan (Shakespearean sonnet) | 21 | |
| 13670861384 | tercet | a three-line stanza or poem | 22 | |
| 13670861385 | terza rima | an arrangement of tercets, especially in iambs, that rhyme aba bcb cdc, etc. | 23 | |
| 13670861386 | triadic (stepped line) | a poetic line that unfolds in three descending or "stepped" parts | 24 | |
| 13670861387 | quatrain | a four-line stanza or poem; divided into three, the first 12 lines of an Elizabethan (Shakespearean sonnet) are also called quatrains | 25 | |
| 13670861388 | sestet | a six-line stanza or poem; the last six lines of an Italian (Petrarchan sonnet) are also called a sestet | 26 | |
| 13670861389 | octave | an eight-line stanza or poem; the first eight lines of an Italian (Petrarchan sonnet) are also called an octave | 27 | |
| 13670861390 | rhyme | the repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line; rhymed words conventionally share all sounds following the word's last stressed syllable | 28 | |
| 13670861391 | masculine rhyme | rhymes ending in a stressed syllable (the most common type) | 29 | |
| 13670861392 | feminine rhyme | rhyming of one or more unstressed syllables, such as "dicing" and "enticing." | 30 | |
| 13670861393 | end rhyme | rhyming of the final syllables of a line with the final syllables of another line | 31 | |
| 13670861394 | internal rhyme | rhyme within a single line of verse; when a word from the middle of a line is rhymed with a word at the end of the line | 32 | |
| 13670861395 | monorhyme | the use of only one rhyme in a stanza (for example, "bright", "sight", and "night") | 33 | |
| 13670861396 | blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter; also called heroic verse | 34 | |
| 13670861397 | assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called "vowel rhyme" | 35 | |
| 13670861398 | alliteration | the repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or verse line | 36 | |
| 13670861399 | refrain | a phrase or line repeated at intervals within a poem, especially at the end of a stanza | 37 | |
| 13670861400 | sonnet | a 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme; literally a "little song," the sonnet traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or "turn" (volta) of thought in its concluding lines | 38 | |
| 13670861401 | ode | a formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea; its stanza form, rhythm, and meter vary from poem to poem | 39 | |
| 13670861402 | ballad | a popular narrative song passed down orally; in the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines folk (or traditional) ballads are anonymous and recount tragic, comic, or heroic stories with emphasis on a central dramatic event | 40 | |
| 13670861403 | elegy | in traditional English poetry, it is often a melancholy poem that laments its subject's death but ends in consolation | 41 | |
| 13670861404 | epic | a long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic or historical significance | 42 | |
| 13670861405 | epigram | a short poem, especially a satirical one, having a witty or ingenious ending | 43 | |
| 13670861406 | limerick | a kind of humorous verse of five lines, in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, form a rhymed couplet (see Edward Lear: "There Was an Old Man with a Beard") | 44 | |
| 13670861407 | free verse | non-metrical, non-rhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech | 45 | |
| 13670861408 | prose poem | a prose composition that, though not broken into lines, contains poetic element such as metaphors and other figures of speech associated with poetry | 46 | |
| 13670861409 | lyric | a short poem in which the poet, the poet's persona, or another speaker expresses personal feelings | 47 | |
| 13670861410 | pastoral | a poem that celebrates a retreat from the trappings of modernity to the imagined virtues and romance of rural life; also known as "bucolic" | 48 | |
| 13670861411 | villanelle | a French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas; these two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain (see "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas) | 49 | |
| 13670861412 | parody | a comic imitation of another author's work or characteristic style | 50 | |
| 13670861413 | complaint | a poem of lament, often directed at an ill-fated love; it may also be a satiric attack on social injustice or immorality | 51 | |
| 13670861414 | dirge | a brief hymn or song of lamentation and grief | 52 | |
| 13670861415 | occasional poem | a poem written to describe or comment on a particular event and often written for a public reading | 53 | |
| 13670861416 | ubi sunt | a Latin phrase meaning "Where are they?"; by posing a series of questions about the fate of the strong, beautiful, or virtuous, these poems meditate on the transitory nature of life and the inevitability of death; the phrase can now refer to any poetry that treats these themes | 54 | |
| 13670861417 | ekphrasis | a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art; through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the "action" of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning | 55 | |
| 13670861418 | figurative language (figures of speech) | expressive, nonliteral use of language; also known as "tropes" | 56 | |
| 13670861419 | simile | comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as "like," "as," or "than" | 57 | |
| 13670861420 | epic simile | a detailed, often complex poetic comparison that unfolds over the course of several lines | 58 | |
| 13670861421 | metaphor | a comparison that is made directly, or less directly, but does not point out a similarity by using words such as "like", "as", or "than" | 59 | |
| 13670861422 | conceit | an often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor whose delights are more intellectual than sensual | 60 | |
| 13670861423 | kenning | a figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary noun; for example, when the ocean is referred to as a "whale-path" in "The Seafarer" | 61 | |
| 13670861424 | symbol | something in the world of the senses, including an action, that reveals or is a sign for something else, often abstract or otherworldly | 62 | |
| 13670861425 | hyberbole | a figure of speech composed of a striking exaggeration | 63 | |
| 13670861426 | litotes | a deliberate understatement for effect | 64 | |
| 13670861427 | apostrophe | an address to a dead or absent person, or personification as if he or she were present | 65 | |
| 13670861428 | synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole (for example, "I've got wheels" for "I have a car") | 66 | |
| 13670861429 | metonymy | a figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself; often the substitution is based on a material, causal, or conceptual relation between things; for example, the British monarchy is often referred to as "the Crown" | 67 | |
| 13670861430 | personification | a figure of speech in which the poet describes an abstraction, a thing, or a nonhuman form as if it were a person | 68 | |
| 13670861431 | paradox | as a figure of speech, it is a seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that illuminates a truth | 69 | |
| 13670861432 | oxymoron | a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other | 70 | |
| 13670861433 | irony | as a literary device, irony implies a distance between what is said and what is meant | 71 | |
| 13670861434 | allusion | a brief, intentional reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement | 72 | |
| 13670861435 | ellipsis | in poetry, the omission of words whose absence does not impede the reader's ability to understand the expression | 73 | |
| 13670861436 | imagery | vivid language that appeals to the senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, organic, and gustatory) | 74 | |
| 13670861437 | synesthesia | in description, a blending or intermingling of different sense modalities (as in "the thick silence of the forest") | 75 | |
| 13670861438 | onomatopoeia | the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe | 76 | |
| 13670861439 | euphony | language that is pleasing to the ear, commonly made up of "soft" consonants and/or open vowels within a group of words | 77 | |
| 13670861440 | cacophony | harsh or discordant sounds, often the result of repetition and combination of hard consonants and/or closed vowels within a group of words | 78 |
