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| 6556008128 | Adage | A short, memorable saying that is based on facts, and is verifiable by the general public. Example: In Memoriam (by Alfred Lord Tennyson) Tis better to have loved and lost Then never to have loved at all | 0 | |
| 6556009326 | Anachronism | An anachronism is a continuity error in a literary piece. Example: "Brutus: Peace! Count the clock. Cassius: The clock has stricken three." "Julius Caesar," William Shakespeare | 1 | |
| 6556011070 | Aposiopesis | A figure of speech where the speaker abruptly stops speaking and leaves the statement incomplete. Example: King Lear: I will have revenges on you both That all the world shall-I will do such things— What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth! King Lear, William Shakespeare | 2 | |
| 6556011978 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech where the speaker detaches him/herself from reality to address a imaginary concept/character. Example: "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." "Macbeth," William Shakespeare | 3 | |
| 6556013200 | Denouement | Literary device which can be defined as the resolution of the most important conflict of a complicated fictitious plot. Example: Montague: But I can give thee more, For I will raise her statue in pure gold, That whiles Verona by that name is known,... As that of true and faithful Juliet... Capulet: As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie, Poor sacrifices of our enmity..... Prince: A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.... Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare | 4 | |
| 6556014783 | Chiasmus | A rhetorical device in which two clauses are connected by the structural reversal of the original clause Example: "But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves." (Shakespeare, Othello) | 5 | |
| 6556015450 | Dissonance | The use of harsh, impolite, and abnormal language in poetry. Example: "The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling." The Dalliance of the Eagles (by Walt Whitman) | 6 | |
| 6556016318 | Elegy | A poem or song written in honor of a dead person, usually in elegaic couplets Example: In Memory of W. B. Yeats, by W. H. Auden | 7 | |
| 6556017582 | Eulogy | A eulogy is a work of literature written to praise something, or someone. Example: "After Thought" by William Wordsworth | 8 | |
| 6556018591 | Half Rhyme | A rhyme in which the stressed syllables of ending consonants match but the preceding vowel sounds do not match. Example: 'Not any higher stands the Grave For Heroes than for men- Not any nearer for the Child Than numb Three Score and Ten-' (Emily Dickinson, "Not any Higher Stands the Grave") | 9 | |
| 6556019571 | Isocolon | A rhetorical device where you have a succession of sentences that have an equal grammatical structure, however are separated. Example:Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground, Then, lays his finger on his temple; straight, Springs out into fast gait; then, stops again, Strikes his breast hard; and anon, he casts (Henry VIII by William Shakespeare) | 10 | |
| 6556020392 | Lampoon | A malicious or unjust attack on a person, an institute, or an activity. Example: "Thou cur, half French, half English breed, Thou mongrel of Parnassus." A Collection of Miscellany Poems, Letters, &c (by Mr. Brown) | 11 | |
| 6556021528 | Litotes | Figure of speech that is employed by using double negatives Example: "I am not unaware how the productions of the Grub Street brotherhood have of late years fallen under many prejudices." (Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub) | 12 | |
| 6556022240 | Lyric | Lyric is a set of verses and choruses, composing a complete song, or a short and poem that is not based on a narrative. Example: "Turn back the heart you've turned away Give back your kissing breath Leave not my love as you have left The broken hearts of yesterday But wait, be still, don't lose this way... Accept my love, live for today." Italian Sonnet (by James DeFord) | 13 | |
| 6556022861 | Metalepsis | Metalepsis is an advanced form of figurative speech in which one thing is referred to another thing that is only slightly related to it. Example: "As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling..." (Out, Out by Robert Frost) | 14 | |
| 6556025061 | Neologism | A neologism is a newly-created word used in expressions, in both writing and speaking. Example: "Free Lancers" (Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott) | 15 | |
| 6556030334 | Nemesis | Literary device that references a situation of poetic justice where the good characters are rewarded for their virtues and the evil characters are punished for their vices Example: Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles | 16 | |
| 6556031341 | Non Sequitur | A logical fallacy where the conclusion does not follow from the facts. Example: Mrs. Smith: Potatoes are very good, fried in fat: the salad oil was not rancid... However, I prefer not to tell them that their oil is bad. Mr. Smith: (continues to read and clicks his tongue) "Bald Soprano" by Eugene Ionesco | 17 | |
| 6556036591 | Parenthesis | Parenthesis is a qualifying or explanatory sentence, clause or word that writers insert into a paragraph or passage Example: —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. (From "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop) | 18 | |
| 6556038989 | Pedantic | A pedantic is someone who is concerned with precision, formalism, accuracy, minute details that are usually irrelevant in order to make an arrogant and ostentatious show of learning. Example: Tom Buchanan, (The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald) | 19 | |
| 6556042093 | Persona | A voice or an assumed role of a character that represents the thoughts of a writer or a specific person the writer wants to present as his mouthpiece. Example: (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot) | 20 | |
| 6556045645 | Portmanteau | The deliberate combination of two words into one, which combines the meaning of the two words as well. Example: "Stop his laysense. Ink him!" (Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce) | 21 | |
| 6556046709 | Prologue | An opening of a story that establishes the setting and gives background details. Example: Prologue on Greek Stage i.e. Prologos | 22 | |
| 6556049619 | Prosody | It is a phonetic term that uses meter, rhythm, tempo, pitch and loudness in a speech for revealing information about the meaning of what was spoken. Example: Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold (To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet) | 23 | |
| 6556056362 | Procatalepsis | A figure of speech in which the speaker or writer gives response to the objection of an opponent in his speech by repeating his objection. Example: " 'I know what you're going to say' ... 'That if they look at it properly they'll see that it wasn't our fault. But will they look at it properly? Of course they won't. You know what cats they are ...' " The Captives (by Hugh Walpole) | 24 | |
| 6556059450 | Pathetic Fallacy | A literary device that attributes human qualities and emotions to inanimate objects of nature. Example: "Wuthering Heights," Emily Bronte | 25 | |
| 6556062076 | Paraprosdokian | Paraprosdokian is a literary device with a linguistic U-turn that results in humor or surprise. Example: Trin Tragula-for that was his name-was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot... (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams) | 26 | |
| 6556066257 | Polyptoton | A stylistic device that is a rhetorical repetition of the same root word, however, each time the word is repeated in a different way. Example: The Greeks are strong, and skillful to their strength, fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant...." (Trolius and Cressida by William Shakespeare) | 27 | |
| 6556070024 | Satire | A genre that is centered on ridiculing a particular ideology, or person, that uses humour, irony, and exaggeration to make it/them seem less credible. Example: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb | 28 | |
| 6556072131 | Synecdoche | A literary device that represents a element of a subset as the entire subset Example: "O no! It is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken." Sonnet 116, Shakespeare. | 29 | |
| 6556074312 | Sibilance | Sibilance is a literary device where strongly stressed consonants are created deliberately by producing air from vocal tracts through the use of lips and tongue. Example: SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;... (Ode to Autumn by John Keats) | 30 | |
| 6556079377 | Semantics | Semantics construct a relation between adjoining words and clarifies the sense of a sentence whether the meanings of words are literal or figurative. Example: that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd... (Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare) | 31 | |
| 6556082840 | Solecism | It is a stylistic device, which is defined as a grammatical mistake or intentional use of incorrect grammar in written language and speech. Example: He works his work, I mine.... (Ulysses by Tennyson) | 32 | |
| 6556085236 | Spondee | A metrical foot, spondee is a beat in a poetic line which consists of two accented syllables (stressed/stressed). Example: By the shining Big-Sea-Water, At the doorway of his wigwam,... (The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow) | 33 | |
| 6556089671 | Surrealism | Indication of relation to the Surrealist movement in the arts. Example: Dark Poet, a maid's breast Haunts you, Embittered poet, life seethes And life burns, And the sky reabsorbs itself in rain, Your pen scratches at the heart of life. "Dark Poet" by Antonin Artaud | 34 | |
| 6556093338 | Superlative | Superlative is a literary device which is usually an adjective or adverb used to distinguish an object from three or more others of its type. Example: Sweetest Love! I do not go For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can shew A fitter love for me; (Song by John Donne) | 35 | |
| 6556096478 | Synesis | Synesis is a rhetorical device in which the traditional grammatical agreement of syntax is replaced by an agreement in its sense. Example: "Among the growing numbers of men seeking his services, a significant proportion are spurred to do so by female voices..." (Europe's Extraordinary Makeover by Catherine Mayer) | 36 | |
| 6556099386 | Synesthesia | Synesthesia refers to a technique adopted by writers to present ideas, characters or places in such a manner that they appeal to more than one sense at a specific time Example: "Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sun burnt mirth!" Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats | 37 | |
| 6556102246 | Syncope | Syncope is a literary device which can be defined as the contraction or the shortening of a word by omitting sounds, syllables or letters from the middle of the word. Example: The road extended o'er the heath William Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much with Us" (Juvenilia XVIa; Juvenilia XVIb) | 38 | |
| 6556106348 | Sesquipedalian | The use of a word that is incredibly long. Example: "The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur — nuk!) of a once... (Finnegans by James Joyce) | 39 | |
| 6556110453 | Scansion | Scansion means to divide the poetry or a poetic form into feet by pointing out different syllables based on their lengths. Example: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all . . . ("Hope is the Thing With Feathers" by Emily Dickinson) | 40 | |
| 6556112457 | Tmesis | Tmesis involves the breaking down of a phrase or a word into two parts. Example: "This is not Romeo, he's some other where." (Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare) | 41 | |
| 6556116001 | Trope | Trope is metaphorical or figurative use of words in which writers shift from the literal meanings of words to their non-literal meanings. Example: Two households, both alike in dignity... (Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare) | 42 | |
| 6556118366 | Trimeter | Trimeter is a poetic device that is defined as a meter or a line that consists of three iambic feet. Example: The only news I know Is bulletins all day From Immortality. (The Only News I Know by Emily Dickinson) | 43 | |
| 6556121956 | Undertone | Undertone is an attitude that lies under the ostensible tone of a literary work. Example: Cherry Orchard (by Anton Chekhov) | 44 | |
| 6556124984 | Verisimilitude | In a literary work, verisimilitude is likeness to the truth i.e. resemblance of a fictitious work to a real event even if it is a far-fetched one. Example: "that for above seventy Moons past there have been two struggling Parties in this Empire, under the Names of Tramecksan and Slamecksan from the high and low Heels on their shoes, by which they distinguish themselves." Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver Travels" | 45 | |
| 6556127058 | Villanelle | Villanelle is defined as a poetic device which requires a poem to have 19 lines and a fixed form. Example: Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath | 46 | |
| 6556129766 | Zeugma | Zeugma, is a figure of speech in which a word, usually a verb or an adjective, applies to more than one noun, blending together grammatically and logically different ideas. Example: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) | 47 | |
| 6556131762 | Refutation | Refutation can be described as the negation of an argument, opinion, testimony, doctrine, or theory, through contradicting evidence. Example: "If indeed very strong objections have obtained much currency, or have been just stated by an opponent, so that what is asserted is likely to be regarded as paradoxical, it may be advisable to begin with a Refutation." (Richard Whately, Elements of Rhetoric, 1846) | 48 | |
| 6556135316 | Internal Rhyme | A poetic device that refers to rhyme being used within the same line in a poem. Example: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe | 49 |
