Terms : Hide Images
| 7315135739 | Allegory | The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning. | 0 | |
| 7315145290 | Alliteration | The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words. | 1 | |
| 7315189328 | Allusion | A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art. | 2 | |
| 7315126807 | Ambiguity | The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage. | 3 | |
| 7315162639 | Analogy | A comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification. | 4 | |
| 7315157998 | Anaphora | The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. | 5 | |
| 7315131497 | Anastrophe | The order of the noun and adjective are exchanged (switched around). | 6 | |
| 7315180850 | Anecdote | A short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. | 7 | |
| 7315152530 | Antagonist | A person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary. | 8 | |
| 7315184868 | Antimetabolite | A chemical that inhibits the use of a metabolite. | 9 | |
| 7315076446 | Antithesis | Opposition, or contrast, of ideas or words in a parallel construction | 10 | |
| 7315080703 | Antihero | A central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes. | 11 | |
| 7315083806 | Anthropomorphism | Attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object. | 12 | |
| 7315083807 | Aphorism | A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. | 13 | |
| 7315083808 | Apostrophe | Addressing something nonhuman as if it were human. Example: Death, be not proud . . . | 14 | |
| 7315087408 | Apposition | Placing two nouns side by side, the second of which serves as an explanation of the first. | 15 | |
| 7315087409 | Assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds. | 16 | |
| 7315087410 | Asyndeton | A construction in which elements are presented in a series without conjunctions. | 17 | |
| 7315089389 | Balance | Places elements on the page so that text and graphic elements are evenly distributed. | 18 | |
| 7429576451 | Characterization | The process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character. | 19 | |
| 7429578973 | 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 character's effect on other people (showing how other characters feel or behave toward the character), or by showing the character in action. Common in modern literature. | 20 | |
| 7429578974 | Direct Characterization | The author tells us directly what the character is like: sneaky, generous, mean to pets and so on. Romantic style literature relied more heavily on this form. | 21 | |
| 7429582438 | Static Character | Is one who does not change much in the course of a story. | 22 | |
| 7429650687 | Dynamic Character | Is one who changes in some important way as a result of the story's action. | 23 | |
| 7429650688 | Flat Character | Has only one or two personality traits. They are one dimensional, like a piece of cardboard. They can be summed up in one phrase. | 24 | |
| 7429650947 | Round Character | Has more dimensions to their personalities - they are complex, just as real people are. | 25 | |
| 7429680828 | Chiasmus | In poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. "Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike." In prose this is called antimetabole. | 26 | |
| 7429680829 | Cliché | Is a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse. | 27 | |
| 7429683564 | Colloquialism | A word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations. "He's /out of his head/ if he thinks I'm /gonna go for/ such a stupid idea." | 28 | |
| 7731073529 | Comedy | In general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflict faced by the main character or characters. | 29 | |
| 7731073530 | Conceit | An elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. Often an extended metaphor. | 30 | |
| 7731073531 | Confessional Poetry | A 20th century term used to describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet's life. | 31 | |
| 7731075951 | Conflict | The struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story. | 32 | |
| 7731075952 | External Conflict | Conflicts can exist between two people, a person and nature, a person and a machine, or between a person and a whole society. | 33 | |
| 7731079215 | Internal Conflict | A conflict can be internal, involving opposing forces within a person's mind. | 34 | |
| 7731079216 | Connotation | The associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition. | 35 | |
| 7731079284 | Couplet | Two consecutive rhyming lines in a poem. | 36 | |
| 7731082510 | Dialect | A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area. | 37 | |
| 7731082511 | Diction | A speaker or writer's choice of words. | 38 | |
| 7906445533 | Didactic | A form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking. | 39 | |
| 7906445534 | Elegy | A poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. A eulogy is great praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who died. | 40 | |
| 7906448147 | Epanalepsis | Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence. Voltaire: "common sense is not so common." | 41 | |
| 7906451026 | 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. | 42 | |
| 7906451027 | Epigraph | A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme. | 43 | |
| 7906451028 | Epistrophe | Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences (it is the opposite of anaphora). | 44 | |
| 7906454491 | Epithet | An adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality. "Father of our country" and "the great Emancipator" are examples. | 45 | |
| 7906454492 | Essay | A short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject. | 46 | |
| 7906456809 | Persuasion | Relies more on emotional appeals than on facts. | 47 | |
| 7906458812 | Argument | Form of persuasion that appeals to reason instead of emotion to convince an audience think or act in a certain way. | 48 | |
| 7906458813 | Casual Relationship | Form of argumentation in which the writer claims that one thing results from another, often used as part of a logical argument. | 49 | |
| 7906461546 | Description | A form of discourse that uses language to create a mood or emotion. | 50 | |
| 7906461547 | Exposition | One of the four major forms of discourse, in which something is explained or "set forth." | 51 | |
| 7906461548 | Narrative | The form of discourse that tells about a series of events. | 52 | |
| 8156275119 | Explication | Act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language. | 53 | |
| 8156275120 | Fable | A very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life. | 54 | |
| 8156275121 | Farce | A type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations. | 55 | |
| 8156280164 | Figurative Language | Words which are inaccurate in interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Similes and metaphors are common forms. | 56 | |
| 8156283552 | Flashback | A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time. | 57 | |
| 8156283553 | Foil | A character who acts as contract to another character. Often a funny side kick to the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero. | 58 | |
| 8156286126 | Foreshadowing | The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot. | 59 | |
| 8156286127 | Free verse | Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme. | 60 | |
| 8156286128 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement for effect. "If I told you once, I've told you a million times..." | 61 | |
| 8156290251 | Hypotactic | Sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them. (Use of such syntactic subordination of just one clause to another is known as hypotaxis). | 62 | |
| 8240228320 | Imagery | The use if language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience. | 63 | |
| 8240228321 | Inversion | The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase. | 64 | |
| 8240228322 | Irony | A discrepancy between appearances and reality. | 65 | |
| 8240251689 | Verbal Irony | Occurs when someone says one thing but really means something else. | 66 | |
| 8240294890 | Situational Irony | Takes place when there is discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen. | 67 | |
| 8240308525 | Dramatic Irony | Is so called because it is often used on stage. a character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better. | 68 | |
| 8240319553 | 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. Also a form on contrast by which writers call attention to dissimilar ideas or images or metaphors. | 69 | |
| 8240343365 | Litotes | A form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of negative form. | 70 | |
| 8240362330 | 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 | |
| 8240381731 | Loose sentence | One in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units. | 72 | |
| 8561771782 | Lyric Poem | A poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. A ballad tells a story. | 73 | |
| 8561771783 | 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 | |
| 8561773905 | Implied Metaphor | Does not state explicitly the two terms of the comparison. "I like to see it lap the miles" is an implied metaphor in which the verb lap implies a comparison between "it" and some animal that "laps" up water. | 75 | |
| 8561773906 | Extended Metaphor | A metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it. (conceit if it is quite elaborate). | 76 | |
| 8561776659 | Dead Metaphor | A metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid. "The head of the house", "the seat of the government", "a knotty problem" are all dead metaphors. | 77 | |
| 8561776660 | Mixed Metaphor | A metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible. "The President is a lame duck who is running out of gas." | 78 | |
| 8561778833 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it. "We requested from the crown support of our petition." The crown is used to represent the monarch. | 79 | |
| 8561778834 | Mood | An atmosphere that is created by a writer's diction and the details selected. | 80 | |
| 8561778835 | Motif | A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme. Kurt Vonnegut uses "So it goes" throughout Slaughterhouse-Five to remind the reader of the senselessness of death. | 81 | |
| 8561778872 | Motivation | The reasons for a character's behavior. | 82 | |
| 8561785240 | Onomatopoeia | The use of words whose sounds echo their sense. "Pop." "Zap." | 83 | |
| 8561785241 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. "Jumbo shrimp." "Pretty ugly." "Bittersweet." | 84 | |
| 8561785242 | Parable | A relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson about how to lead a good life. | 85 | |
| 8561787627 | Paradox | A statement that appears self-contradictory, but reveals a kind of truth. | 86 | |
| 8561790143 | Koan | A paradox used in Zen Buddhism to gain intuitive knowledge: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" | 87 |
