SCHEMES

  1. Scheme: an artful variation from typical formation and arrangement of words or sentences
  2. Alliteration: repetition of consonants in nearby words
  3. Anadiplosis: repetition of a word at the end of a clause and at the beginning of another
  4. Anaphora: the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses
  5. Anastrophe: inversion of the usual word order
  6. Antimetabole: repetition of words in successive clauses, in reverse order
  7. Antistrophe: the repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses
  8. Antithesis: the juxtaposition of opposing or contrasting ideas, words, phrases, and clauses
  9. Apposition: the placing of two elements side by side, in which the second defines the first
  10. Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds, most commonly within a short passage of verse
  11. Asyndeton: omission of conjunctions between related clauses
  12. Cacophony: the juxtaposition of words producing a harsh sound
  13. Chiasmus: reversal of grammatical structures in successive clauses
  14. Climax: the arrangement of words in order of increasing importance
  15. Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds within words
  16. Ellipsis: omission of words
  17. Enthymeme: informal method of presenting a syllogism
  18. Epistrophe: repetition of a word at the beginning and end of a clause
  19. Parallelism: the use of similar structures in two or more clauses
  20. Parenthesis: insertion of a clause or sentence in a place where it interrupts the natural flow of the sentence
  21. Tautology: redundancy due to superfluous qualification; saying the same thing twice

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TROPES

  1. Trope: an artful variation from expected modes of expression of thoughts and ideas
  2. Allegory: an extended metaphor in which a story is told to illustrate an important attribute of the subject
  3. Anataclasis: a form of pun in which a word is repeated in two different senses
  4. Anthimeria: the substitution of one part of speech for another, often turning a noun into a verb
  5. Antiphrasis: a word or words used contradictory to their usual meaning, often with irony
  6. Aphorism: calling into question the meaning of a term
  7. Aporia: deliberation with oneself, often with the use of rhetorical questions
  8. Apostrophe: addressing a thing, an abstraction or a person not present
  9. Catachresis: a mixed metaphor (sometimes used by design and sometimes a rhetorical fault)
  10. Circumlocution: “talking around” a topic by substituting or adding words, as in euphemism or periphrasis
  11. Connotation: the feeling or attitude associated with a word, related to but not quite distinct from its literal meaning
  12. Denotation: gives the literal meaning of a word or idea
  13. Dramatic Irony: words or acts of a character in a play may carry a meaning unperceived by him/her but understood by the audience
  14. Erotemia: synonym for rhetorical question
  15. Hyperbole: use of exaggerated terms from emphasis
  16. Irony: use of words in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning
  17. Litotes: emphasizing the magnitude of a statement by denying its opposite
  18. Meiosis: use of understatement, usually to diminish the importance of something
  19. Metonymy: substitution of a word to suggest what is really meant
  20. Oxymoron: using two terms together, that normally contradict each other
  21. Onomatopoeia: words used in such a way that the sound of the words imitates the sound of the thing spoken about
  22. Parable: an extended metaphor presented as anecdote to illustrate or teach a moral lesson
  23. Paradox: use of apparently contradictory ideas to point out some underlying truth
  24. Paralepsis: drawing attention to something while pretending to pass over it
  25. Paronomasia: a form of pun, in which words similar in sound but with different meanings are used
  26. Pathetic Fallacy: using a word that refers to a human action on something non-human
  27. Periphrasis: substitution of a word or phrase for a proper name
  28. Personification: attributing a personality to some impersonal object
  29. Pun: a play on words
  30. Procatalepsis: refuting anticipated objections as part of the main argument
  31. Rhetorical Question: asking a question as a way of asserting something
  32. Sarcasm: use of exaggerated praise to imply dispraise – bitter ridicule
  33. Simile: an explicit comparison between two things
  34. Situational Irony: a happening contrary to that which is appropriate
  35. Syllepsis: a form of pun, in which a single word is used to modify two other words, with which it normally would have different meanings
  36. Synecdoche: a form a metonymy, in which a part stands for the whole
  37. Verbal Irony: saying the opposite of what one means (not sarcasm or satire)
  38. Zeugma: a figure of speech related to syllepsis, but different in that the word used a modifier is not compatible with one of the two words it modifies