Rhetorical Devices

Front 1

Allegory

Back 1

A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse.

Front 2

Alliteration

Back 2

Repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words. Most often they are repeated initial consonants.

Front 3

Anaphora

Back 3

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines.

Front 4

Aposiopesis

Back 4

Breaking off suddenly in the middle of speaking, usually to portray being overcome with emotion.

Front 5

Apostrophe

Back 5

Turning one's speech from one audience to another. Most often it occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent.

Front 6

Asyndeton

Back 6

The omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect.

Front 7

Chiasmus

Back 7

Either the repetition of ideas in inverted order (a-b-b-a) or the repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order.

Front 8

Ecphrasis

Back 8

A vivid description using details to place an object or event, or the literary description of a work of art.

Front 9

Ellipsis

Back 9

Omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.

Front 10

Enjambment

Back 10

The breaking of a linguistic unit by the end of a line or verse.

Front 11

Hendiadys

Back 11

Expressing a single idea by two nouns instead of a noun and its qualifier (ex. The Power and the Glory, the powerful glory). A method of amplification that adds force.

Front 12

Hyperbaton

Back 12

The distanced placement of two words which logically are meant to be understood together.

Front 13

Hyperbole

Back 13

Rhetorical exaggeration.

Front 14

Hysteron Proteron

Back 14

Disorder of time, the reversal of the natural or logical order of ideas (ex. Put on your shoes and socks).

Front 15

Irony

Back 15

Speaking in such a way as to imply the contrary of what one says, often for the purpose of derision, mockery, or jest.

Front 16

Litotes

Back 16

A deliberate understatement, especially by expressing a thought by denying its opposite (a kind of double-negative).

Front 17

Metaphor

Back 17

A comparison made by referring to one thing as another.

Front 18

Metonymy

Back 18

Reference to something or someone by naming one of its attributes.

Front 19

Onomatopoeia

Back 19

Using or inventing a word whose sound imitates that which it names.

Front 20

Oxymoron

Back 20

Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another (a compressed paradox).

Front 21

Personification

Back 21

Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities.

Front 22

Pleonasm

Back 22

Use of more words than is necessary semantically. Rhetorical repetition that is grammatically superfluous.

Front 23

Polyptoton

Back 23

The repetition of a noun or pronoun in different cases at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses.

Front 24

Polysyndeton

Back 24

Employing many conjunctions between clauses, often slowing the tempo or rhythm.

Front 25

Praeteritio

Back 25

Starting and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass over it (a kind of irony).

Front 26

Prolepsis

Back 26

Speaking of something future as though it is already done or existing (a figure of anticipation).

Front 27

Prosopopoeia

Back 27

The introduction into an oration of the direct speech of a character other than the orator.

Front 28

Simile

Back 28

An explicit comparison, often employing "like" or "as".

Front 29

Synchysis

Back 29

The confused arrangement of words in a sentence (a-b-a-b).

Front 30

Synecdoche

Back 30

A whole is represented by naming one of its parts, or vice versa.

Front 31

Tmesis

Back 31

Interjecting a word or phrase between parts of a compound word or between syllables of a word.

Front 32

Transferred Epithet

Back 32

The movement of an adjective from a word it properly describes to another place in the sentence.

Front 33

Tricolon Crescens

Back 33

A sentence built of three clauses, each more emphatic than the previous one, and the last being the longest.

Front 34

Zeugma

Back 34

When a single word that governs or modifies two or more others must be understood differently with respect to each of those words. A combination of grammatical parallelism and semantic incongruity, often with a witty or comical effect.