Terms : Hide Images
| 4782606692 | allegory | an extended NARRATIVE in PROSE or VERSE in which characters, events, and settings represent abstract qualities and in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story. The underlying meaning may be moral, religious, political, satiric, or social. The characters are often PERSONIFICATIONS of such abstractions as greed, envy, hope, charity, or fortitude | 0 | |
| 4782620410 | alliteration | the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or within words | 1 | |
| 4782621688 | allusion | a passing reference to historical or fictional CHARACTERS, places, or events, or to other works the writer assumes the reader will recognize. Allusions to the Bible and William Shakespeare's works are common because both enjoy a vast readership. Old LITERATURE contains many allusions to Greek and Roman literature, which formerly played an important role to education. The power of allusions lie in suggestion and connotation. | 2 | |
| 4782631882 | ambiguity | double or even multiple meanings. Unintentional ability is considered a defect in scientific writing and wherever clarity is prized. Intentional ambiguity in the form of a PUN, or play on words, is a source of HUMOR much used by comics. The term has also been applied to the richness of association valued in POETRY | 3 | |
| 4782642355 | anachronism | an event, object, person, or thing that is out of its order in time. Anachronisms abound in Shakespeare. | 4 | |
| 4782646494 | analogy | a comparison of similar things, often for the purpose of using something to familiar to explain something unfamiliar. For example, the branching river system is often examined by comparing it to a tree. | 5 | |
| 4782652928 | anecdote | a brief NARRATIVE of unentertaining and presumably true incident. Anecdotes are used in biographical writing, ESSAYS, and speeches to reveal a personality trait or to illustrate a point | 6 | |
| 4782658534 | antecedent | something that comes before. In the context of grammar, the antecedent of a pronoun is the word that the pronoun stands for | 7 | |
| 4782662554 | antithesis | a figure of speech in which opposing or contrasting ideas are balanced against each other in a grammatically parallel syntax | 8 | |
| 4782666015 | aphorism | a terse statement of a principle or truth, usually an observation about life; a maxim. Aphorisms can be witty as well as insightful, as this aphorism by George Eliot demonstrates: "The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history" | 9 | |
| 4782676321 | apostrophe | the device, usually in poetry, of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place, thing, or personified abstraction either to begin a poem or to make a dramatic break in thought somewhere within the poem | 10 | |
| 4782681500 | archetype | a pattern or model of an action (such as lamenting the dead), a character type (rebellious youth), or and image (paradise as a garden) that occurs consistently enough in life and literature to be considered universal | 11 | |
| 4782694747 | argument | discourse intended to convince or persuade through appeals to reason or to the emotions, the objective being to influence belief or motivate action | 12 | |
| 4782699532 | canon | generally, any group of writing that has established as authentic; more specifically, those books of the Christian Bible that are accepted as Scripture. This term is used to describe collectively those works of a particular author that have been proven or are considered genuine. Currently canon is often used to identify the classical and contemporary literature "authorized" by schools and universities as the core of literary study. | 13 | |
| 4782718092 | caricature | descriptive writing that exaggerates specific features of appearance or personality, usually for a comic effect | 14 | |
| 4782723410 | colloquial/colloquialism | a word or phrase in everyday use in conversation, in informal writing, but sometimes inappropriate in a formal essay | 15 | |
| 4782726008 | connotation | the associations, images, or impressions carried by a word, as opposed to the word's literal meaning. For example, the word mother means literally "a female parent," but it usually connotes warmth, sympathy, security, and nurture | 16 | |
| 4782733944 | denotation | the precise, literal meaning of a word, without emotional associations or overtones | 17 | |
| 4782735371 | dialect | the version of a language spoken by the people of a particular region or social group. Differing in vocabulary and grammar as well as in pronunciation, the dialects of language develops when groups of people are separated by natural or social barriers. | 18 | |
| 4782750815 | diction | word choice. There are two basic standards- not mutually exclusive- by which a speaker or writer's diction is usually judged: clarity and appropriateness | 19 | |
| 4782762742 | didactic | poetry, plays, novels, and stories whose primary purpose is to guide, instruct, or teach. Since all literature communicates ideas, whether a particular work is didactic or not depends largely on the author's intentions, so far as it can be known or inferred by the reader or critic | 20 | |
| 4782772211 | digression | a portion of speech or written work that interrupts the development of the THEME or PLOT. Although out of place in FORMAL essays and tightly structured PLAYS and stories, digressions are common in loosely structured NARRATIVES, such as EPICS and PICARESQUE novels | 21 | |
| 4782794099 | epiphany | a moment of revelation or profound insight. In Greek myths, an epiphany was the sudden revelation to a human being of the hidden or disguised divinity of a god or goddess. The Christian feast of Epiphany commemorates the revelation of Christ's divinity to the three wise men | 22 | |
| 4782800569 | epithet | an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing to emphasize a characteristic quality or attribute, such as "lily-livered coward" or "murmuring book" | 23 | |
| 4782805228 | eulogy | a formal composition or speech in high praise of someone (living or dead) | 24 | |
| 4782806692 | euphemism | the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant | 25 | |
| 4782809768 | figurative language | language that contains figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, personification, or hyperbole | 26 | |
| 4782812893 | figure of speech | expressions, such as metaphors, similes, personifications, that make comparisons or associations meant to be taken imaginatively rather than literally | 27 | |
| 4782820337 | hyperbole | obvious, extravagant exaggeration or overstatement, not intended to be taken literally, but used figuratively to create humor or emphasis | 28 | |
| 4782824062 | imagery | the making of "pictures with words". Imagery is often synonymous with figure of speech or figurative language. Imagery appeals to the senses. It evokes a complex of emotional suggestions and communicated mood, tone, and meaning | 29 | |
| 4782829575 | incongruity | the quality of being incongruous, in any number of ways: of being inharmonious or incompatible or inconsistent | 30 | |
| 4782835442 | inference/infer | a general conclusion drawn from particulars | 31 | |
| 4782837002 | inversion | reversing the normal order of sentence parts | 32 | |
| 4782838322 | irony | (verbal, situational, dramatic): in the broadcast sense, the recognition of the incongruity or difference, between reality and appearance. Verbal irony is the contrast between what is said and what is meant. Situational irony refers to the contrast between what is intended or expected and what actually occurs. Dramatic irony occurs when a character unwittingly makes a remark that the audience is intended to understand as ironic, or in contradiction to the full truth | 33 | |
| 4782848177 | local color | the use in writing of the physical setting, dialect, customs, and attitudes that typify of a particular region | 34 | |
| 4782850417 | mood | a prevailing emotional attitude in a literary work or in part of a work. Mood is the author's attitude toward the subject or the theme | 35 | |
| 4782852822 | metaphor | (extended, dead, mixed) a figure of speech, and implied analogy in which one thing is imaginatively compared to or identified with another dissimilar thing. An extended metaphor is sustained throughout the work and functions as a controlling image. A dead metaphor is one that has been used so often it has ceased to be figurative and is taken literally. A mixed metaphor combines two or more inconsistent metaphors in a single expression, often resulting in unintentional humor. | 36 | |
| 4782863147 | metonymy | a figure of speech that substitutes the name of a related object, person, or idea for the subject at hand | 37 | |
| 4782865293 | motif | in literature, a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object , or situation that appears in various works or the same work | 38 | |
| 4782867749 | narrative | a recounting of a series of actual or fictional events in which some connection between the events is established or implied | 39 | |
| 4782869616 | oxymoron | a figure of speech in which two contradictory words or phrases are combined in a single expression, giving an effect of a condensed paradox | 40 | |
| 4782872469 | parable | a short tale illustrating a moral lesson | 41 | |
| 4782873886 | paradox | a statement that, while apparently self-contradictory, is nonetheless essentially true | 42 | |
| 4782876004 | parallelism | the technique of showing that words, phrases, clauses, or larger structures are comparable in content and importance by placing them side by side and making them similar in form | 43 | |
| 4782880117 | parody | a composition that ridicules another composition by imitating and exaggerating aspects of its content, structure, and style, accomplishing in words what caricature achieves in drawing | 44 | |
| 4782883060 | pathetic fallacy | a term coined by John Ruskin to criticize the use of PERSONIFICATION, in which human emotions are attributed to nature. Although many poets use this device, Ruskin found it a form of false emotionalism | 45 | |
| 4782887861 | plagiarism | using another writer's ideas or words as one's own. Plagiarism, which comes from the Latin word meaning "to kidnap," ranges from deliberate literary theft to inept paraphrasing to unconscious borrowing. From a legal standpoint the term is defined as "demonstrable use of matter plainly taken from another without credit" | 46 | |
| 4782896023 | point of view | the vantage point, or stance, from which a story is told, the eye and mind through which the action is perceived and filtered; sometimes called narrative perspective. First person or third person | 47 | |
| 4782899879 | prose | in the broadest sense, all forms of ordinary writing and speech lacking the sustained and regular rhythmic patterns found in POETRY. Prose is characterized by the sort of plain, straightforward statement found in everyday speech. It is the language of ESSAYS, SHORT STORIES, and NOVELS | 48 | |
| 4782906261 | rhetoric | the art of persuasion, in speaking and writing. Rhetoric originated in ancient Greece as principles for orator (rhetors) to follow in "discovering all the possible means of persuading in any given case or situation." The rhetorical process included five stages- invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery | 49 | |
| 4782913674 | sarcasm | harsh, cutting, personal remarks to or about someone, not necessarily ironic | 50 | |
| 4782914913 | satire | a term used to describe any form of LITERATURE that blends ironic HUMOR and WIT with criticism for the purpose of ridiculing folly, vice, stupidity-the whole range of human foibles and frailties- in individuals and institutions | 51 | |
| 4782922078 | stream of consciousness | a method and a subject matter of NARRATIVE FICTION that attempts to represent the inner workings of a character's mind at all levels of awareness, to re-create the continuous, chaotic flow of half-formed and discontinuous thoughts, memories, sense impressions, random associations, images, feelings, and reflections that constitute a character's "consciousness" | 52 | |
| 4782930666 | synecdoche | a FIGURE OF SPEECH in which a part of something stands for the whole thing. In the expression "I've got wheels" wheels stand for the whole vehicle | 53 | |
| 4782934979 | symbolism | the conscious and artful use of SYMBOLS, objects, actions, or CHARACTERS meant to be taken both literally and as representative of some higher, more complex, and abstract significance that lie beyond ordinary meaning | 54 | |
| 4782940087 | syntax | the arrangement and grammatical relation of words, phrases, and clauses in sentences; the ordering of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences | 55 | |
| 4782943191 | tone | the reflection of in a work of the author's attitude toward his or her SUBJECT, CHARACTERS, and readers. Tone in writing is comparable to tone of voice in speech and may be described as brusque, friendly, imperious, and reasoning and so on. | 56 | |
| 4782947878 | understatement | a type of verbal IRONY in which something is purposely represented as being far less important than it actually is; also called meiosis | 57 | |
| 4782947879 | voice | a term used in LITERARY CRITICISM to identify the sense a written work conveys to a reader of its writer's attitude, personality, and character | 58 | |
| 4782953854 | pathos | appeals to emotions, feelings | 59 | |
| 4782953855 | ethos | appeals to ethnics | 60 | |
| 4782953856 | logos | appeals to logic | 61 | |
| 4806397851 | asyndeton | removal of conjugations-usually replaced by commas causes it to feel more rushed | 62 | |
| 4806397852 | polysyndeton | use of several conjugations causes it to become more dramatic | 63 | |
| 4806397853 | ribald | vulgar, rowdy | 64 | |
| 4806397854 | morose | incredibly sad, connected to death, can be very dramatic | 65 | |
| 4806397855 | enumeration | #'s, lists of information can cause a feeling of being overwhelmed | 66 | |
| 4806397856 | interrogative | question sentence | 67 | |
| 4806397857 | imperative | command, could have an explanation point | 68 | |
| 4806397858 | cumulative sentence | front loads the independent clause and tags on the details | 69 | |
| 4806397859 | periodic sentence | wait for the independent clause | 70 | |
| 4816043404 | claim | (assertion) a statement that could be put into the form of a declarative sentence | 71 | |
| 4816043405 | warrant | the glue that holds an argument together it links the evidence to the claim | 72 | |
| 4816043406 | qualifier | words or phrases that are added to another word to modify its meaning, either by limiting it or enhancing it | 73 | |
| 4816043407 | disclaimer | an exception or interruption to an argument | 74 | |
| 4816043408 | counter argument | an argument or set of reasons put forward to oppose an idea or theory developed in another argument | 75 |
