Terms : Hide Images
| 4437580342 | Allegory | Story or poem in which characters, settings and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities. | 0 | |
| 4437585333 | Alliteration | Repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together. | 1 | |
| 4437591148 | Allusion | Reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another brand of culture. | 2 | |
| 4437596054 | Ambiguity | Deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work. An event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way. | 3 | |
| 4437606344 | Analogy | Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike. | 4 | |
| 4437609773 | Anaphora | Repetition of a word, phrase or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. | 5 | |
| 4437617912 | Anastrophe | Inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a sentence. | 6 | |
| 4437627471 | Anecdote | Brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something, often shows the character of an individual. | 7 | |
| 4437632163 | Antagonist | Opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a story. | 8 | |
| 4437637927 | Antimetabole | Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order. In poetry, this is called a chiasmus. | 9 | |
| 4437645490 | Antithesis | Balancing words, phrases or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure. | 10 | |
| 4437649788 | Antihero | Central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with heroes. | 11 | |
| 4437654254 | Anthropomorphism | Attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object (personification). | 12 | |
| 4437659097 | Aphorism | Brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of an accepted general truth. Also called maxim or epigram. | 13 | |
| 4437667182 | Apostrophe | Calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea. | 14 | |
| 4437672446 | Apposition | Placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first. | 15 | |
| 4437682284 | Assonance | The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds especially in words that are together. | 16 | |
| 4437685549 | Asyndeton | Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus emphasizing the parts equally. | 17 | |
| 4437691764 | Balance | Constructing a sentence so that both halves are the same length and importance. | 18 | |
| 4437696584 | Characterization | The process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character. | 19 | |
| 4437706189 | Chiasmus | In poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. | 20 | |
| 4437717204 | Cliche | A word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse. | 21 | |
| 4437723922 | Colloquialism | A word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations. | 22 | |
| 4437734177 | Comedy | In general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters. | 23 | |
| 4437738839 | Conceit | An elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. | 24 | |
| 4437747378 | Conflict | The struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story. | 25 | |
| 4437749839 | Connotation | The associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition. | 26 | |
| 4437755779 | Couplet | Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry. | 27 | |
| 4437758203 | Dialect | A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area. | 28 | |
| 4437763519 | Diction | A speaker or writer's choice of words. | 29 | |
| 4437766183 | Didactic | A form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking. | 30 | |
| 4437771448 | Elegy | A poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. | 31 | |
| 4437775966 | Epanalepsis | Device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated both at the beginning and end of the line, clause or sentence. | 32 | |
| 4437782026 | 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. | 33 | |
| 4437787228 | Epigraph | A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work, suggestive of the theme. | 34 | |
| 4437791583 | Epistrophe | Device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses or sentences. | 35 | |
| 4437798049 | Fable | A very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life. | 36 | |
| 4437806043 | Flashback | A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time. | 37 | |
| 4437810896 | Foil | A character who acts as contrast to another character. Often a funny sidekick to the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero. | 38 | |
| 4437820495 | Foreshadowing | The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot. | 39 | |
| 4437830338 | Free Verse | Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme. | 40 | |
| 4437833522 | Hyperbole | Figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement, for effect. | 41 | |
| 4437837044 | Hypotactic | Sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them. | 42 | |
| 4437844763 | Imagery | The use of language to evoke a picture or concrete sensation of a person, a place, a thing, or an experience. | 43 | |
| 4437849368 | Inversion | The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase. | 44 | |
| 4437852045 | Irony | A discrepancy between appearances and reality. | 45 | |
| 4437854763 | 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. | 46 | |
| 4437868556 | Litotes | A form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form. | 47 | |
| 4437876157 | Loose Sentence | One in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units. | 48 | |
| 4437882239 | Lyric Poem | A poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. | 49 | |
| 4437889502 | Metaphor | A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of specific words of comparison, such as like, as, than or resembles. | 50 | |
| 4437897650 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it. | 51 | |
| 4437902687 | Mood | An atmosphere created by a writer's diction and the details selected. | 52 | |
| 4437906171 | Motif | A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme. | 53 | |
| 4437916653 | Onomatopeia | The use of words whose sounds echo their sense. "Pop" or "Zap!" | 54 | |
| 4437921991 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. | 55 | |
| 4437927396 | Parable | A relatively short story that teaches a moral, or a lesson about how to lead a good life. | 56 | |
| 4437932003 | Paradox | A statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth. | 57 | |
| 4437939277 | Parallelism | The repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures. | 58 | |
| 4437945093 | Paratactic | Sentence that juxtaposes clauses or sentences. | 59 | |
| 4437947932 | Parody | A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer's style. | 60 | |
| 4437952340 | Pedantic | An adjective that describes words, phrases or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or "bookish". | 61 | |
| 4437972515 | Periodic | Sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all the introductory elements. | 62 | |
| 4437977425 | Personification | A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts or attitudes. | 63 | |
| 4437983693 | Plot | The series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline. | 64 | |
| 4437988211 | Exposition | Introduces characters, situation, and setting. | 65 | |
| 4437990085 | Rising Action | Complications in conflict and situations. | 66 | |
| 4437995673 | Climax | The point in a plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, or interest. | 67 | |
| 4437998258 | Resolution | The conclusion of a story, when all or most of the conflicts have been settled. | 68 | |
| 4438002117 | Point of View | The vantage point from which the writer tells the story. | 69 | |
| 4438005873 | Polysendeton | Sentence which uses a conjunction with no commas to separate the items in a series. | 70 | |
| 4438012176 | Protagonist | The central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action. | 71 | |
| 4438014960 | Pun | A play on words. | 72 | |
| 4438018989 | Quatrain | A poem consisting of four lines, or four lines in a poem that can be considered as a unit. | 73 | |
| 4438023848 | Refrain | A word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem. | 74 | |
| 4438027661 | Rhythm | A rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language. | 75 | |
| 4438033107 | Rhetoric | Art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse. | 76 | |
| 4438038833 | Rhetorical Question | A question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer. | 77 | |
| 4438041983 | Romance | In general, a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful. | 78 | |
| 4438047138 | Satire | A type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about change. | 79 | |
| 4438051846 | Simile | A figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles. | 80 | |
| 4438059355 | Soliloquy | A long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage. | 81 | |
| 4438063788 | Stereotype | A fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices. | 82 | |
| 4438071757 | Stream of Consciousness | A style of writing that portrays the inner workings of a character's mind. | 83 | |
| 4438074273 | Style | The distinctive way in which a writer uses language: a writer's distinctive use of diction, tone and syntax. | 84 | |
| 4438079650 | Suspense | A feeling of uncertainty and curiosity about what will happen next in a story. | 85 | |
| 4438088518 | Syllogism | A deductive system of formal logic that presents two premises (the first one called "major" and the second called "minor") that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion. | 86 | |
| 4438097326 | Symbol | A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself. | 87 | |
| 4438102782 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. | 88 | |
| 4438105465 | Syntax | The way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses and sentences. | 89 | |
| 4438109750 | Tall Tale | An outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable. | 90 | |
| 4438115726 | Theme | The insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work. | 91 | |
| 4438119459 | Thesis | The sentence or group of sentences, in expository writing, that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or position. | 92 | |
| 4438129238 | Tragedy | In general, a story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end. | 93 | |
| 4438134222 | Tricolon | Sentence of three parts of equal importance and length, usually three independent clauses. | 94 | |
| 4438137892 | Understatement | A statement that says less than what is meant. | 95 | |
| 4438140978 | Vernacular | The language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality. | 96 |
