Terms : Hide Images
| 267743708 | Connotation | Refers to the vast range of other meanings that a word suggests. Ex: I am looking at the sky. | |
| 267743709 | Oxymoron | An apparent contradiction of terms. Ex: I advise you to make haste slowly. | |
| 267743710 | Paradox | An apparent contradiction of ideas or statements. Ex: The only way to overcome death is to die. | |
| 267743711 | Personification | The figurative device in which inanimate objects or concepts are given human qualities. Ex: He had been wrestling with lethargy for days, and every time that he thought that he was close to victory, his adversary escaped his hold. | |
| 267743712 | Rhetorical Question | A question whose answer is obvious. Ex: With all the violence on TV today, is it any wonder kids bring guns to school? | |
| 267743713 | Bombast | Language that is overly rhetorical (pompous), especially when considered in context. | |
| 267743714 | Pun | A play on words. Ex: In Star Wars, why did the Evil Empire leave the Catholic nuns alone? | |
| 267743715 | Metonymy | One term is substituted for another term with which it is closely associated. Ex: The sailors drank a glass of hearty red. | |
| 267743716 | Synecdoche | A form of metonymy that's restricted to cases where a part is used to signify the whole. Ex: All hands on deck! | |
| 267743717 | Theme | A general idea contained in a text. Ex: Many scholars agree that the central theme in Huckleberry Finn is the conflict between nature and civilization. But clearly, the book contains other themes, such as the worth of honor and the voyage of self-discovery. | |
| 267743718 | Aphorism | A concise, pithy statement of an opinion or a general truth. Ex: Life is short, the art [of medicine] is long, opportunity fleeting, experimentation dangerous, reasoning difficult. | |
| 267743719 | Malapropism | The unintentional use of a word that resembles the word intended but that has a very different meaning. Ex: He was a man of great statue. | |
| 267743720 | Circumlocution | "Talking around a subject" and "talking around a word". Ex: Candide was court-martialed, and he was asked which he liked better, to run the gautlet six and thirty times through the whole regiment, or to have his brains blown out with a dozen musket-balls. | |
| 267743721 | Euphemism | Word or words that are used to avoid employing an unpleasant or offensive term. Ex: One day when Mademoiselle Cunegunde went to take a walk in a little neighboring woods that was called a park, she saw- through the bushes- the sage Doctor Pangloss giving a lecture in experimental philosophy to her mother's chambermaid, a little brown wench, very pretty and very accommodating. | |
| 267743722 | Irony | Stating something but meaning the opposite of what is stated. | |
| 267743723 | Sarcasm | Verbal irony used with the intent to injure. | |
| 267743724 | Situational Irony | A situation that runs contrary to what was expected. Ex: You live in Seattle during the rainy season and plan a vacation to sunny Phoenix. While you are in Phoenix, it rains every day there, but is sunny the entire week in Seattle. | |
| 267743725 | Satire | Something is portrayed in a way that's deliberately distorted to achieve comic effect. |
