20 Figures Of Speech
1. Alliteration- Repetition of an initial consonant
sound.
- A moist young moon hung above
the mist of a neighboring meadow.
- Guinness is good for you.
- Good men are gruff and
grumpy, cranky, crabbed, and cross.”
2. Anaphora- Repetition of the same word or phrase at the
beginning of successive clauses or verses.
- We shall go on to the
end.
- We shall fight with growing
confidence and growing strength in the air.
- We shall depend our
island.
3. Antitheses- The juxtaposition of
contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
- Love is an ideal thing,
marriage a real thing
- Everybody doesn’t like
something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.
- Hillary has soldiered on,
damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t, like most powerful women,
expected to be tough as nails and warm as toast at the same time.
4. Apostrophe-
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some
abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
- “O western wind, when wilt
thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?” - “Blue Moon, you saw me
standing alone,Without a dream in my heart,Without a love on my own.”
- “Death be not proud, though
some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,For,
those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,Die not, poore death, nor
yet canst thou kill me.”
5. Assonance- Identity or similarity in sound between
internal vowels in neighboring words.
- “Those images that yet, Fresh images
beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.” - “If I bleat when I speak it’s
because I just got . . . fleeced.”
- “The spider skins lie on
their sides, translucent and ragged, their legs drying in knots.”
6. Chiasmus-
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced
against the first but with the parts reversed.
- “Nice to see you, to see you,
nice!”
- “You forget what you want to
remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”
- “In the end, the true test is
not the speeches a president delivers; it’s whether the president delivers
on the speeches.”
7. Euphemism- The substitution of an
inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
- We’ll see you when you get
back from image enhancement camp.
- You’ve got a prime figure.
You really have, you know.
8. Hyperbole- An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of
emphasis or heightened effect.
- “I was helpless. I did not
know what in the world to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and could
have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far.”
- “He snorted and hit me in the
solar plexus.
- “I bent over and took hold of
the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave
it a full swing and hit myself on the back of the head with the floor.”
9. Irony- The
use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or
situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation
of the idea.
- “Gentlemen, you can’t fight
in here! This is the War Room.”
- He is as smart as a soap
dish.
- I have no doubt your
theatrical performance will receive the praise it so richly deserves.
10. Litotes- A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an
affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
- “The grave’s a fine a private
place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.”
11. Metaphor- An implied comparison between two unlike
things that actually have something important in common.
- Love is a lie.
- Life is going through time.
- You are the light in my life.
12. Metonymy- A
figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with
which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing
something indirectly by referring to things around it.
- “Fear gives wings.”
- “Detroit is still hard at
work on an SUV that runs on rain forest trees and panda blood.”
- “I stopped at a bar and had a
couple of double Scotches. They didn’t do me any good. All they did was
make me think of Silver Wig, and I never saw her again.”
13. Onomatopoeia- The use of words that imitate the
sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
- “Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong. The little train rumbled over the
tracks.”
- “Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng! An alarm clock clanged in the dark and silent room.”
- “I’m getting
married in the morning!
Ding dong! the bells are gonna chime.”
14. Oxymoron- A figure of speech in which
incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
- “How is it possible to have
a civil war?”
- “The best cure for insomnia
is to get a lot of sleep.”
- “A yawn may be defined as a
silent yell.”
15. Paradox- A statement that appears to
contradict itself.
- “The swiftest traveler is he
that goes afoot.”
- “If you wish to preserve your
secret, wrap it up in frankness.”
16. Personification- A figure of speech in which an
inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
- “Oreo: Milk’s favorite
cookie.”
- “The road isn’t built that
can make it breathe hard!”
17. Pun- A play on words,
sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar
sense or sound of different words.
- A vulture boards a plane,
carrying two dead possums. The attendant looks at him and says, “I’m
sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”
- Kings worry about a receding
heir line.
18. Simile- A stated comparison (usually formed with “like” or “as”) between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.
- “Good coffee is like
friendship: rich and warm and strong.”
- “You know life, life is
rather like opening a tin of sardines. We’re all of us looking for the
key.”
19. Synecdoche- A figure of speech in which a part
is used to represent the whole (for example, ABCsfor alphabet)
or the whole for a part (“England won
the World Cup in 1966″).
- “The sputtering
economy could make the difference if you’re trying to get a deal on a new set of wheels.”
- General
Motors announced cutbacks.
20. Understatement- A
figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation
seem less important or serious than it is.
- “The grave’s a fine and
private place,But none,I think,do there embrace.”
- “I am just going outside and
may be some time.”
Submitted
By: Julia Grace F. Bacon
Submitted
To: Mrs. Lotta G. Ferraris
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