Their Love Was Like Romeo and Juliet S
1. Allusion
A reference to a well-known person or place in order to make an image clearer to the reader.
Their love was like Romeo and Juliet’s.
2. *Alliteration
Repetition of an initial consonant sound.
The daffy ducked danced until dawn.
3. Anaphora
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island…
4. Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
The cars of today are marvels of technology, but the cars of yesterday are marvels of design.
5. Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
So I huddled in the alleyway, cold and afraid. “Oh, God, why are you punishing me?”
6. *Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in words.
He can hand the manager the canister.
7. *Cacophony
Harsh joining of sounds to produce a negative feeling.
The echoes from the black cliffs and dark chasms clanged around him and he clashed against the wall of the icy cave.
8. Chiasmus
A figure of speech containing two phrases that are parallel but inverted to each other.
You can take the patriot out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the patriot.
9. *Consonance
The use of several words in a line that have the same ending consonant sound.
You just can’t act without talent.
10. Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
The hamster was not moving. As the boy’s eyes filled with tears, his mother said, “He’s gone on to a better place, son.”
11. Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
As she looked down from the top of the ladder, it seemed as if she was a million miles from the ground.
12. Irony
Verbal:The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning.
Wow, am I lucky! (when an unlucky event happens)
Situational:Two situations that are joined together by an unexpected and coincidental common element.
She cut her hair to buy him a watch chain and he sold his watch to buy her a hair clip.
13. Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.
She is a couch potato.
14. Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated
The suits in the office took my cell phone away.
15. *Onomatopoeia
The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
The click-clack of her heels on the tile warned me she was here.
16. Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
His shoulder was relieved by the icy hot salve.
17. Paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.
Deep down he’s really very shallow.
18. Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
The car hugged the wall.
19. Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
20. Simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.
Her skin was as white as snow.
His temper was like a volcano.
21. Synechdoche
A figure of speech is which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.
All hands on deck.
Brazil won the soccer match.
22. 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 San Francisco earthquake was a slight tremor in the history of the United States.