Terms : Hide Images
| 6672957924 | Protagonist | the main character in a story; more than one character may be important enough to be called "main," or NO character seems to qualify. In those cases, figuring out whether there is a main character and who it is may be an interesting and even difficult interpretive job | 0 | |
| 6672957925 | Pun | a play on words wherein a word is used to convey two meanings at the same time. The line below, spoken by Mercutio in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," is an example of a pun. Mercutio has just been stabbed, knows he is dying and says: "Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. " | 1 | |
| 6672957926 | Quatrain | a four-line stanza | 2 | |
| 6672957927 | Quintet | a five-line stanza | 3 | |
| 6672957928 | Realism | fidelity to actuality in literature | 4 | |
| 6672957929 | Refrain | a phrase or line, usually pertinent to the central topic, which is repeated at regular intervals throughout a poem, usually at the end of a stanza. | 5 | |
| 6672957930 | Resolution | the part of a story or drama which occurs after the climax and which establishes a new norm, a new state of affairs - the way things are going to be from then on | 6 | |
| 6672957931 | Rhetoric | The art of speaking or writing effectively; skill in the eloquent use of language. | 7 | |
| 6672957932 | Rhetorical Question | a question solely for effect, with no answer expected. By the implication that the answer is obvious, it is a means of achieving an emphasis stronger than a direct statement. | 8 | |
| 6672957933 | Rhyme Scheme | a pattern of rhyming words in a stanza | 9 | |
| 6672957934 | Gauche | lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward. | 10 | |
| 6672957935 | Impeach | Charge the holder of a public office with misconduct. | 11 | |
| 6672957936 | Bowdlerize | remove material that is considered improper or offensive from (a text or account), especially with the result that it becomes weaker or less effective. | 12 | |
| 6672957937 | Chicanery | the use of trickery to achieve a political, financial, or legal purpose. | 13 | |
| 6672957938 | Deciduous | A tree or shrub shedding its leaves annually. | 14 | |
| 6672957939 | Deleterious | causing harm or damage. | 15 | |
| 6672957940 | Oligarchy | a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution. | 16 | |
| 6672957941 | Quasar | a massive and extremely remote celestial object, emitting exceptionally large amounts of energy, and typically having a starlike image in a telescope. It has been suggested that quasars contain massive black holes and may represent a stage in the evolution of some galaxies. | 17 | |
| 6672957942 | Qualm | an uneasy feeling of doubt, worry, or fear, especially about one's own conduct; a misgiving. | 18 | |
| 6672957943 | Sanguine | optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation. | 19 | |
| 6672957944 | Orator | A very eloquent public speaker | 20 | |
| 6672957945 | Pretentious | Attempting to impress by affecting greater important, talent, culture, etc. than is actually possessed. | 21 | |
| 6672957946 | Arrogant | Having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities | 22 | |
| 6672957947 | Entitled | Believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. | 23 | |
| 6672957948 | Resilient | Able to withstand or spring back or recover after a difficult situation. | 24 | |
| 6672957949 | Superficial | Existing or occurring at or on the surface. Caring a lot about how you look on the outside | 25 | |
| 6672957950 | Acumen | The ability to make good judgments and quick decisions, typically in a particular domain. | 26 | |
| 6672957951 | Buttress | A projecting support of stone or brick built against a wall. | 27 | |
| 6672957952 | Serendipity | The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way | 28 | |
| 6672957953 | Zenith | The highest point reached by a celestial or other object | 29 | |
| 6672957954 | Aesthetic | concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty. | 30 | |
| 6672957955 | Anachronistic | 1 : an error in chronology; especially : a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other. 2 : a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place; especially : one from a former age that is incongruous in the present. | 31 | |
| 6672957956 | Misanthrope | A person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society. | 32 | |
| 6672957957 | Assiduous | Showing great care and perseverance. | 33 | |
| 6672957958 | Censure | Express severe disapproval | 34 | |
| 6672957959 | Clairvoyant | A person who claims to have a supernatural ability to perceive event in the future or beyond normal sensory contact. | 35 | |
| 6672957960 | Divergent | Tending to be different or develop in different directions. | 36 | |
| 6672957961 | Hedonist | A person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important thing in life | 37 | |
| 6672957962 | Lobbyist | A lobbyist is someone hired by a business or a cause to persuade legislators to support that business or cause. Lobbyists get paid to win favor from politicians. For example, oil companies send lobbyists to Washington to try to make life easier for oil companies. | 38 | |
| 6672957963 | Integrity | The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles | 39 | |
| 6672957964 | Gerrymander | manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class. | 40 | |
| 6672957965 | Filibuster | an action such as a prolonged speech that obstructs progress in a legislative assembly while not technically contravening the required procedures. | 41 | |
| 6672957966 | Usurp | take (a position of power or importance) illegally or by force. | 42 | |
| 6672957967 | Vortex | a mass of whirling fluid or air, especially a whirlpool or whirlwind. | 43 | |
| 6672957968 | Laissez faire | a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering. abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market. | 44 | |
| 6672957969 | Omnipotent | A deity having unlimited power; able to do anything. God | 45 | |
| 6672957970 | Incognito | Having one's true identity concealed. Undercover | 46 | |
| 6672957971 | Infrastructure | the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. | 47 | |
| 6672957972 | Jejune | naive, simplistic, and superficial. | 48 | |
| 6672957973 | Metamorphosis | a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means. | 49 | |
| 6672957974 | Homogeneous | of the same kind; alike. | 50 | |
| 6672957975 | Heterogeneous | diverse in character or content. | 51 | |
| 6672957976 | Hegemony | leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others. | 52 | |
| 6672957977 | Bellicose | demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight. | 53 | |
| 6672957978 | Antebellum | occurring or existing before a particular war, especially the American Civil War. | 54 | |
| 6672957979 | Totalitarian | of or relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete submission to the state. | 55 | |
| 6672957980 | Notarize | Have a document legalized by a notary. | 56 | |
| 6672957981 | Churlish | rude in a mean-spirited and surly way. | 57 | |
| 6672957982 | Facetious | treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant. | 58 | |
| 6672957983 | Paradigm | a typical example or pattern of something; a model. | 59 | |
| 6672957984 | Saga | a long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic. | 60 | |
| 6672957985 | Synesthesia | While the term synesthesia literally refers to a medical condition wherein one or many of the sensory modalities become joined to one another, in literature it refers to the depiction of a strong connection, link or bond between the different senses. Characters in literature are sometimes described to be experiences synesthesia. Synesthesia is the conflation of the senses. | 61 | |
| 6672957986 | Synthesis | the combination of ideas to form a theory or argument. | 62 | |
| 6672957987 | Adage | a proverb or short statement expressing a general truth. | 63 | |
| 6672957988 | Debunk | expose the falseness or hollowness of idea or belief. | 64 | |
| 6672957989 | Demagogue | a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument. | 65 | |
| 6672957990 | Dirge | a lament for the dead, especially one forming part of a funeral rite. | 66 | |
| 6672957991 | Dogma | a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. | 67 | |
| 6672957992 | Duplicity | deceitfulness; double-dealing; fraud. | 68 | |
| 6672957993 | Extol | praise enthusiastically. | 69 | |
| 6672957994 | Eponym | a person after whom a discovery, invention, place, etc., is named or thought to be named. | 70 | |
| 6672957995 | Interpretation | the action of explaining the meaning of something. | 71 | |
| 6672957996 | Modernism | modern character or quality of thought, expression, or technique. a style or movement in the arts that aims to break with classical and traditional forms. | 72 | |
| 6672957997 | Postmodernism | a late-20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism that represents a departure from modernism and has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with any notion of "art." | 73 | |
| 6672957998 | Persona | A character with a distinct identity created by an author to achieve a particular effect of to deliver a particular message which reflect the author's viewpoint | 74 | |
| 6672957999 | Plagiarism | the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. | 75 | |
| 6672958000 | Merit | the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward. | 76 | |
| 6672958001 | Analogue | The definition of an analogue is a thing or person that is like something else in some ways. | 77 | |
| 6672958002 | Lyric Poem | a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. | 78 | |
| 6672958003 | Fallacy | a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument. | 79 | |
| 6672958004 | Caricature | a picture, description, or imitation of a person or thing in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect. | 80 | |
| 6672958005 | Inference | a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning. | 81 | |
| 6672958006 | Invective | insulting, abusive, or highly critical language. | 82 | |
| 6672958007 | Pedantic | Fussy perfectionist | 83 | |
| 6672958008 | Semantics | the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and sub-branches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning. | 84 | |
| 6672958009 | Essay | a short piece of writing on a particular subject. | 85 | |
| 6672958010 | Analysis | detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation. | 86 | |
| 6672958011 | Context | the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. | 87 | |
| 6672958012 | Digression | a temporary departure from the main subject in speech or writing. | 88 | |
| 6672958013 | Double Entendre | a word or phrase open to two interpretations, one of which is usually risqué or indecent. | 89 | |
| 6672958014 | Cliché | is a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse. Avoid clichés like the plague. (That cliché́ is intended.) | 90 | |
| 6672958015 | External Conflict | conflicts can exist between two people, between a person and nature or a machine or between a person a whole society. | 91 | |
| 6672958016 | Internal Conflict | a conflict can be internal, involving opposing forces within a person's mind. | 92 | |
| 6672958017 | 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." | 93 | |
| 6672958018 | Explication | Act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language. | 94 | |
| 6672958019 | Litotes | is a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form | 95 | |
| 6672958020 | 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. | 96 | |
| 6672958021 | Extended Metaphor | is a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it. | 97 | |
| 6672958022 | Mood | An atmosphere created by a writer's diction and the details selected. | 98 | |
| 6672958023 | Suspense | a feeling of uncertainty and curiosity about what will happen next in a story. | 99 | |
| 6672958024 | Denotation | Dictionary definition of a word | 100 | |
| 6672958025 | Doppelganger | The alter ego of a character, the suppressed side of one's personality that is usually unaccepted by society. | 101 | |
| 6672958026 | Epistolary | Used to describe a novel that tells its story through letters written from one character to another. | 102 | |
| 6672958027 | Memoir | An account of the personal experiences of an author. | 103 | |
| 6672958028 | Prequel | A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel. | 104 | |
| 6672958029 | Prologue | An introduction or preface, especially a poem recited to introduce a play. | 105 | |
| 6672958030 | Epilogue | a section or speech at the end of a book or play that serves as a comment on or a conclusion to what has happened. | 106 | |
| 6672958031 | 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. Common in modern literature | 107 | |
| 6672958032 | 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. | 108 | |
| 6672958033 | Static Character | is one who does not change much in the course of a story. | 109 | |
| 6672958034 | Theme | an ingredient of a literary work which gives the work unity. The theme provides an answer to the question, "What is the work about?" Each literary work carries its own theme(s). Unlike plot, which deals with the action of a work, theme concerns itself with a work's message or contains the general idea of a work and is worded in a complete sentence. | 110 | |
| 6672958035 | Tone | expresses the author's attitude toward his or her subject. Since there are as many tones in literature as there are tones of voice in real relationships, the tone of a literary work may be one of anger or approval, pride or piety; the entire gamut of attitudes toward life's phenomena. | 111 | |
| 6672958036 | Tragedy | depicts the downfall or destruction of a character | 112 | |
| 6672958037 | Tragic Flaw | a tragic flaw or error in judgment | 113 | |
| 6672958038 | Trope | another name for figurative language | 114 | |
| 6672958039 | Understatement | statement in which the literal sense of what is said falls short of the magnitude of what is being talked about (a litote is a type of understatement.) Understatement: where we deliberately say less than we mean, and let the audience understand the real meaning | 115 | |
| 6672958040 | Verisimilitude | the semblance of truth; the degree to which a writer creates the appearance of truth | 116 | |
| 6672958041 | Villanelle | a poem with five triplets and a final quatrain; only two rhyme sounds are permitted in the entire poem, and the first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated, alternately, as the third line of subsequent stanzas until the last, when they appear as the last two lines of the poem. | 117 | |
| 6672958042 | Voice | the "speaker" in a piece of literature | 118 | |
| 6672958043 | Anecdote | Brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something, often shows character of an individual | 119 | |
| 6672958044 | Stream of consciousness | narrative technique which presents thoughts as if they were coming directly from a character's mind | 120 | |
| 6672958045 | Stressed/ unstressed (in poetry) | saying certain syllables or words in a line with more emphasis or volume. | 121 | |
| 6672958046 | Structure | the planned framework for a piece of literature | 122 | |
| 6672958047 | Style (in writing) | a writer's typical way of expressing him- or herself | 123 | |
| 6672958048 | Subtext | a term denoting what a character means by what (s)he says when there is a disparity between diction and intended meaning. In irony a character may say one thing and mean something entirely different. The real meaning of the speech is the subtext. | 124 | |
| 6672958049 | Syllogism | the underlying structure of deductive reasoning, having a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion based on logic. Syllogisms are either valid or invalid. | 125 | |
| 6672958050 | Symbolism | using an image to represent an idea. Ex. Storms often symbolize impending disaster, red rose=love, dove=peace, black cat=bad luck | 126 | |
| 6672958051 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole or the whole for a part, as wheels for automobile or society for high society | 127 | |
| 6672958052 | Synesthesia | the perception or description of one kind of sense impression in words normally used to describe a different sense, like a "sweet voice" or a "velvety smile." It can be very effective for creating vivid imagery. | 128 | |
| 6672958053 | Syntax | the arrangement of words in a sentence, the grammar of a sentence | 129 | |
| 6672958054 | Setting | the place(s) and time(s) of the story, including the historical period, social milieu of the characters, geographical location, descriptions of indoor and outdoor locales, etc. | 130 | |
| 6672958055 | Short Story | also called tale. Has many of the same characteristics as the novel but details are arranged to achieve a single effect, with action moving rapidly and with minimal complication or detail of setting. The significant characteristics of the protagonist's life are revealed economically through a central incident. | 131 | |
| 6672958056 | Simile | a figure of speech which takes the form of a comparison between two unlike quantities for which a basis for comparison can be found, and which uses the words "like" or "as" in the comparison, as in the following: "clear as frost on the grass-bade | 132 | |
| 6672958057 | Slang | expressions that are usually fleeting and may or may not be particular to a certain region or group | 133 | |
| 6672958058 | Soliloquy | a long speech made by a character who is alone on the stage in which he reveals his innermost thoughts & feelings | 134 | |
| 6672958059 | Sonnet | The English, or Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three quatrains (four-line groupings) and a final couplet (14 lines). The rhyme scheme is. The meter is iambic pentameter, with a set rhyme scheme-- abab cdcd efef gg. The change of rhyme in the English sonnet is coincidental with a change of theme in the poem. The structure of the English sonnet explores variations on a theme in the first three quatrains and concludes with an epigrammatic couplet. | 135 | |
| 6672958060 | Stanza | a related group of lines in a poem, equivalent to a paragraph in prose | 136 | |
| 6672958061 | Tercet | a three-line stanza in poetry | 137 | |
| 6672958062 | Octave | An eight-line stanza in poetry | 138 | |
| 6672958063 | Stereotype | a characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions that one aspect (such as gender, age, ethnicity, religion, race) determines what humans are like and so is accompanied by certain traits, actions, and even value. | 139 | |
| 6672958064 | Rhythm | the metrical or rhythmical pattern in a poem | 140 | |
| 6672958065 | Rising Action | the development of conflict leading to a crisis; the second section of the typical plot, in which the main character begins to grapple with the story's main conflict; the rising action contains several events which usually are arranged in an order of increasing importance. | 141 | |
| 6672958066 | Romance | works having extravagant characters, remote or exotic settings, adventure, magic, chivalry, and love | 142 | |
| 6672958067 | Round Character | a fully developed character; character who is complex, multi-dimensional, and convincing. | 143 | |
| 6672958068 | Sarcasm | the caustic and heavy use of apparent praise | 144 | |
| 6672958069 | Satire | a piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt. Satire arouses laughter or scorn as a means of ridicule and derision, with the avowed intention of correcting human faults. | 145 | |
| 6672958070 | Scene (in a play) | short division within an act in a play; a particular setting in any work of literature | 146 | |
| 6672958071 | Second Person Point of View | the narrator uses "you" as the narrator telling the story (uncommon!) | 147 | |
| 6672958072 | Septet | a seven-line stanza | 148 | |
| 6672958073 | Sestet | a six-line stanza | 149 |
