Allusion-Understatement Literary Terms

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which two contradictory words or phrases are combined in a single expression.

Syllogism

A form of logical reasoning, consisting of two premises and a conclusion.

Aphorism

A terse statement of a principal or truth; a maxim. (Life is long, reasoning difficult, etc.)

Cliché

Any expression that has been used so often it has lost its freshness.

Synesthesia

The description of one kind of sensation in terms of another.

Mixed metaphor

a combination of two or more inconsistent metaphors in a single expression

Analogy

a comparison of similar things, often to explain something unfamiliar with something familiar. (the branching of a river system is often explained using a tree and its branches.)

Litotes

a figure of speech by which an affirmation is made indirectly by saying its opposite, usually with an effect of understatement

Pun

a form of wit, not necessarily funny, involving a play on a word with two or more meanings

Simile

a less direct metaphor, using like or as.

Kenning

a metaphoric compound word or phrase used as a synonym for a common noun.

Apostrophe

a rhetorical device in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an inanimate object or abstraction

Proverb

a short saying that expresses some commonplace truth or bit of folk wisdom

Understatement

a type of verbal irony in which something is purposely represented as being far less important than it actually is.

Anachronism

an event, object, custom, person or thing that is out of its natural order of time. A clock strikes in Julius Caesar.

Extended metaphor

an idea sustained throughout the work

Allusion

an indirect or passing reference to an event, person, place or artistic work that the author assumes the reader will understand.

Epigram

any terse, witty, pointed saying.

Hyperbole

exaggeration for the sake of emphasis in a figure of speech not meant literally

Metonymy

figure of speech in which a representative term is used for a larger idea.

Synecdoche

figure of speech that utilizes a part as representative of the whole.

Euphemism

he substitution of a mild term for one more offensive or hurtful

Figurative language

language that contains figures of speech, such as metaphor, simile, personification, etc.

Dead metaphor

one that has been used so much it has lost its figurative meaning and is taken literally

Tautology

repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase or sentence.

Malapropism

the comic substitution of one word for another similar in sound, but quite different in meaning

Metaphor

the most important and widespread figure of speech in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea or action, so as to suggest some common quality (qualities) shared by the two.

Personification

the technique by which animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate objects are referred to as if they were human

Onomatopoeia

the use of words that seem to imitate the sounds they refer to