List #8
A hodgepodge of terms we may want to know
1. Meiosis is a form of understatement that dismisses or belittles especially by using terms that make something seem less significant than it really ought to be, often used ironically.
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2. Pleonasm is the use of an excessive number of words to say something, including unnecessary repetition, especially when this is done through ignorance rather than for effect:
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3. Polyptoton is when words are repeated that are not identical but are derived from the same root.
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4. Tautology is where two near-synonyms are placed consecutively or very close together for effect
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5. Antagonym is a word that can mean the opposite of itself
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6. Ellipsis is the omission of one or more words that are understood in the context, but which are required to make the sentence or utterance grammatically correct. Ellipsis is also the name of the three dots (...) used as punctuation to show that some written text is incomplete.
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7. A palindrome is a word or phrase that is spelled the same way forwards or backwards
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8. Anagram: A word or phrase made from the letters of another word or phrase, as "heart" is an anagram of "earth." Anagrams have often been considered merely an exercise of one’s ingenuity, but sometimes writers use anagrams to conceal proper names or veiled messages, or to suggest important connections between words, as in "hated" and "death."
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9. Synesthesia refers to when one kind of sensory stimulus evokes the subjective experience of another.
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10. An epigraph is the use of a quotation at the beginning of a work that hints at its theme.
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11. Conduplicatio occurs when key word(s) in one phrase, clause, or sentence are repeated at or very near the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or phrases; repetition of a key word over successive phrases/clauses. Similar to Anadiplosis.
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12. In rhetoric, antonomasia is a substitution of any epithet (descriptive term or phrase having entered common usage) or phrase for a proper name.
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13. An enthymeme is a figure of reasoning in which one or more statements of a syllogism is/are left out of the configuration. Obvious statements may be strategically excluded as they are too obvious or may possibly damage an argument. It allows the audience to infer the conclusion on their own, possibly becoming further persuaded.
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14. Tricolon is the rhetorical term for a series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses. An ascending tricolon is comprised of parts increasing in strength, magnitude, or word length with each pause, whereas a descending tricolon decreases in magnitude or size with each part.
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15. An archetype is the original model or pattern after which other things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based.
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