Terms : Hide Images
| 215143562 | Catachresis | a harsh metaphor involving the use of a word beyond its strict sphere.(I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear. MacArthur, Farewell Address) | |
| 215143563 | Chiasmus | two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels (a-b-a-b) but in inverted order (a-b-b-a); from shape of the Greek letter chi (X). (Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always. MacArthur) | |
| 215143564 | Clima | arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power. Often the last emphatic word in one phrase or clause is repeated as the first emphatic word of the next. (One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Tennyson, Ulysses) | |
| 215143565 | Euphemism | substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant. (When the final news came, there would be a ring at the front door -- a wife in this situation finds herself staring at the front door as if she no longer owns it or controls it--and outside the door would be a man... come to inform her that unfortunately something has happened out there, and her husband's body now lies incinerated in the swamps or the pines or the palmetto grass, "burned beyond recognition," which anyone who had been around an air base very long (fortunately Jane had not) realized was quite an artful euphemism to describe a human body that now looked like an enormous fowl that has burned up in a stove, burned a blackish brown all over, greasy and blistered, fried, in a word, with not only the entire face and all the hair and the ears burned off, not to mention all the clothing, but also the hands and feet, with what remains of the arms and legs bent at the knees and elbows and burned into absolutely rigid angles, burned a greasy blackish brown like the bursting body itself, so that this husband, father, officer, gentleman, this ornamentum of some mother's eye, His Majesty the Baby of just twenty-odd years back, has been reduced to a charred hulk with wings and shanks sticking out of it. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff) | |
| 215143566 | Hendiadys | use of two words connected by a conjunction, instead of subordinating one to the other, to express a single complex idea. (It sure is nice and cool today! (for "pleasantly cool") | |
| 215143567 | Hypallage | ("exchanging") transferred epithet; grammatical agreement of a word with another word which it does not logically qualify. More common in poetry. | |
| 215143568 | Hyperbaton | separation of words which belong together, often to emphasize the first of the separated words or to create a certain image. | |
| 215143569 | Hyperbole: | exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect. (My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should got to praise Thine eyes and on thine forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest. Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress") | |
| 215143570 | Hysteron Proteron | ("later-earlier"): inversion of the natural sequence of events, often meant to stress the event which, though later in time, is considered the more important. (I like the island Manhattan. Smoke on your pipe and put that in) | |
| 215143571 | Irony | expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another. (Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar) | |
| 215143572 | Litotes | understatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed. Sometimes used synonymously with meiosis. (A few unannounced quizzes are not inconceivable) | |
| 215143573 | Metaphor | implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it. (ife's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Shakespeare, Macbeth) | |
| 215143574 | Metonymy | substitution of one word for another which it suggests. (He is a man of the cloth.) | |
| 215143575 | Onomatopoeia | use of words to imitate natural sounds; accommodation of sound to sense. | |
| 215143576 | Oxymoron | apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to contradict one another. (I must be cruel only to be kind. Shakespeare, Hamlet) |
