Rhetorical Devices Examples
Syllogism
"Flavius: Have you forgot me, sir? Timon: Why dost ask that? I have forgot all men; Then, if thou grant'st thou'rt a man, I have forgot thee."
Metonymy
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears."
Colloquialism
"Go nuts."
Anaphora
"Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed."
Catachresis
"His complexion is perfect gallows ..."
Antistrophe
"Hourly joys be still upon you! Juno sings her blessings on you ... Scarcity and want shall shun you, Ceres' blessing so is on you ..."
Pleonasm
"I am eating tuna fish burger."
Litote
"I am not unaware how the productions of the Grub Street brotherhood have of late years fallen under many prejudices."
Catachresis
"I do not ask much: I beg cold comfort ..."
Pleonasm
"I know that you will come."
Pleonasm
"This was the most unkindest cut of all....."
Conceit
"Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind; For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs; Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them, Without a sudden calm, will overset Thy tempest-tossed body."
Ambiguity
"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,"
Aporia
"To be, or not to be: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all....."
Aphorism
"To use too many circumstances, ere one come to the matter, is wearisome, to use none at all, is Blunt."
Apostrophe
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky."
Aporia
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."
Syllepsis
"We must hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately."
Antistrophe
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things..."
Anadiplosis
"When you love, love with all your heart."
Aporia
"Where now? Who now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses, call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going,or by affirmations and negations invalidated as uttered, or sooner or later? ....There must be other shifts. Otherwise it would be quite hopeless..... I should mention before going any further, ,.....Can one be aphetic otherwise than unawares? I don't know...... What am I to do, what should I do, in my situation, how proceed? By aporia pure and simple.....It will be I? It will be the silence, where I am? I don't know, I'll never know: in the silence you don't know..... You must go on....I can't go on....I'll go on....."
Asyndeton
"Without looking, without making a sound, without talking."
Chiasmus
"You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget."
Tautology
"Your acting is completely devoid of emotion."
Ambiguity
A good life depends on a liver.
Antecedent
A good story must have a quality about it; it must have characters, a setting, narration, and dialogues.
Catachresis
"... Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—"
Catachresis
"A man that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green..."
Allegory
"All animals are equal but a few are more equal than others." "Animal Farm", written by George Orwell, uses animals on a farm to describe the overthrow of the last of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the Communist Revolution of Russia before WW I.
Syllgism
"All love is wonder; if we justly do Account her wonderful, why not lovely too?"
Antecedent
"And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell."
Asyndeton
"Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?"
Metonymy
"As he swung toward them holding up the hand, Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from it spilling."
Chiasmus
"Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."
Climax
"Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly; A flower that dies when first it gins to bud; A brittle glass that's broken presently: A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour."
Colloquialism
"Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch,"
Pedantic
"Civilization's going to pieces ... I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Colored Empires' by this man Goddard? ... Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved ... I know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends - in the modern world."
Apostrophe
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me."
Anaphora
"Everyday, everynight, in every way, I am getting better and better."
Allegory
"Faerie Queen" by Edmund Spenser; "The Red-Cross Knight" represents holiness while "Lady Una" represents truth, wisdom and goodness. Her parents symbolize the human race. The "Dragon" which has imprisoned them stands for evil. "The Red-Cross Knight" in this poem also represents the reformed church of England fighting against the "Dragon" which stands for the Papacy or the Catholic Church.
Ambiguity
"I ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I'm quite a heavy smoker, for one thing—that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. That's also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam checkups and stuff. I'm pretty healthy though."
Pleonasm
"I saw it with my own eyes."
Conceit
"If they be two, they are two so As stiff Twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet, when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home."
Satire
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it."
Synesthesia
"In some melodious plot, Of beechen green, Singest of summer in full throated ease."
Apostrophe
"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still."
Anadiplosis
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. / Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon..."
Antithesis
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."
Aphorism
"Life is a tale told by an idiot — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Chiasmus
"Love as if you would one day hate, and hate as if you would one day love."
Assonance
"Men sell the wedding bells."
Anaphora
"My life is my purpose. My life is my goal. My life is my inspiration."
Anaphora
"My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long?"
Chiasmus
"Never let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You."
Anaphora
"O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure."
Ambiguity
"O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy; And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy"
Synecdoche
"O no! It is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken."
Apostrophe
"Oh! Stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness."
Anadiplosis
"Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your attitude. Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action."
Anadiplosis
"Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task."
Antistrophe
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. It is asking others to live as one wishes to live ..."
Antithesis
"Setting foot on the moon may be a small step for a man but a giant step for mankind."
Verbal Irony
"She is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me."
Anadiplosis
"She opened a café, a café that ruined her financially."
Litote
"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice."
Synesthesia
"Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sun burnt mirth!"
Synecdoche
"The western wave was all a-flame. The day was well was nigh done! Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun"
Antistrophe
"Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where - wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there ... An' when our folk eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build - why, I'll be there ..."
Tautology
"This is like deja vu all over again"
Climax
"This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Pedantic
But even they are too pedantic: with prejudiced views, they pursue one-sided aims.
Ambiguity
Each of us saw her duck.
Asyndeton
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes! No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head..... Thou hast not lived, why should'st thou perish, so? Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire; Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead......!
Cacophony
He grunted and in a gruff voice said, "Give me that trash and I'll throw it out!"
Cacophony
He is a rotten, dirty, terrible, trudging, stupid dude!
Cacophony
Klarissa Klein drives an old, grumbling Cadillac which has a crumpled bumper and screaming, honking horn.
Aphorism
Life's Tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
Euphemism
Not the brightest crayon in the crayon box.
Tautology
Repeat that again; reiterate again.
Antithesis
Speech is silver, but silence is gold.
Metonymy
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Synecdoche
The word "boots" usually refers to soldiers.
Paradox
Truth is honey which is bitter.
Alliteration
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
Euphemism
You are becoming a little thin on top.
Antithesis
You are easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart.
Litote
You are not as young as you used to be.