figure of speech
a rhetorical device that achieves a special effect by using words in a distinctive way.
Alliteration
The repetition of an initial consonant sound.
Anaphora
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
Apostrophe
Directly addressing a nonexistent person or an inanimate object as though it were a living being.
Assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds
Chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. Also, a statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.
litotes
A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
metaphor
An implied comparison between two dissimilar things that have something in common.
metonymy
A figure of speech in a word or phrase is substituted for another with which it's closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.
onomatopoeia
The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.
personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.
Synechdoche
A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole.
Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.