Allusion

Metaphor

Analogy

Metonymy

Aphorism

Oxymoron

Apostrophe

Paradox

Conceit

Personification

Extended Metaphor

Simile

Figurative Language

Symbol

Hyperbole

Synecdoche

Irony

Litotes/Understatement

1a

figure of speech in which a word or speech is applied to an object or

action to which it is not literally applicable
ex: He was a fast cheetah when he ran.

an indirect or passing reference to an event, person, place, or artistic

work that the author assumes the reader will understand
ex: "I was surprised his nose was not growing like Pinocchio's." refers to
The Adventures of Pinocchio, written by Carlo Collodi when Pinocchio's
nose grows whenever he tells a lie.

figure of speech in which a representative

term is used for a larger idea
ex: Crown in place of a royal person

a comparison of similar things often to explain

something unfamiliar with something familiar
ex: Apple is to tree as flower is to plant.

a figure of speech in which two contradictory words

or phrases are combined in a single expression
ex: jumbo shrimp

a terse statement of a principle or truth; a maxim

ex: "Sits he on ever so high a throne, a man still sits on his bottom."
(Montaigne) - Richard Nordquist

a statement or expression so surprisingly self-contradictory as to

provoke us into another sense in which it would be true
ex: "I can resist anything but temptation." -Oscar Wilde

the technique by which animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate

objects are referred to as if they were human
ex: whispering wind, weeping willow

a less direct metaphor, using "like" or "as"

ex: She is as pretty as a flower.

anything that stands or represents something else beyond it,

usually an idea conventionally associated with it
ex: The color white representing purity.

figure of speech that utilizes a part as representative

of the whole
ex: The word "wheels" can represent a vehicle.

a rhetorical device in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or

an inanimate object or abstraction
ex: "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,/That I am meek and gentle
with these butchers!/Thou art the ruins of the noblest man/That ever lived in
the tide of times." -Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1 by William Shakespeare
an unusually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar
things or feelings
ex: "If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home."
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning- John Donne

an idea sustained throughout the work

ex: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays
many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and
puking in the nurse's arms..." 'As You Like It' - William Shakespeare

language that contains figures of speech,

such as metaphor, simile, personification,
etc.
exaggeration for the sake of emphasis in a
figure of speech not meant literally
ex: I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!
in its broadest sense, the incongruity, or difference, between reality
(what is) and appearance (what seems to be)
ex: A Burger King infront of a Bally Fitness.

a figure of speech by which an affirmation is made indirectly by

saying its opposite, usually with an affect of understatement
ex: They aren't the happiest couple around.

1b