English figurative language quiz

Personification

Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, animal, or abstract idea. Example: The days crept by slowly, sorrowfully.

Metaphor

A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the action of the other. Example: He's a zero. Example: Her fingers danced across the keyboard.

Simile

A direct comparison of two unlike things using "like" or "as." Example: He's as dumb as an ox. Example: Her eyes are like comets.

Idiom

An expression in which the intended meaning is connotative, not literal. The expression is generally understood as it is commonly used by the speaker and intended audience. Example: Although she was new to the school, Jayda had no difficulty breaking the ice and making friends with her new classmates.

Hyperbole

An outrageous exaggeration used for effect. Example: He weighs a ton.

Euphemism

An understatement, used to lessen the effect of a statement; substituting something innocuous (harmless) for something that might be offensive or hurtful. Example: She is at rest. (meaning, she's dead)

Tone, Mood

The means by which a poet reveals attitudes and feelings, in the style of language or expression of thought used to develop the subject. Certain tones include not only irony and satire, but may be loving, condescending, bitter, pitying, fanciful, solemn, and a host of other emotions and attitudes. Tone can also refer to the overall mood of the poem itself, in the sense of a pervading atmosphere intended to influence the readers' emotional response and foster expectations of the conclusion.

Imagery

The use of vivid language to generate ideas and/or evoke mental images, not only of the visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well.

Onomatopoeia

Words that sound like their meanings. In "Hear the steady tick of the old hall clock", the word tick sounds like the action of the clock. Sometimes, assonance or alliteration can be onomatopoeic, as the sound 'ck' is repeated in tick and clock. Example: boom, buzz, crackle, gurgle, hiss, pop, sizzle, snap, swoosh, whir, zip