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Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Innuendo: having a hidden meaning in a sentence that makes sense whether it is detected or not. Irony: use of word in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning. [18] Kenning: using a compound word neologism to form a metonym. Litotes: emphasizing the magnitude of a statement by denying its opposite.
Detail of the Old English manuscript of the poem Beowulf, showing the words "ofer hron rade" ("over the whale's road"), meaning "over the sea".. A kenning (Icelandic: [cʰɛnːiŋk]) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun.
Hyperbole has been used throughout literature for many centuries. Heroic drama, which is drama with an emphasis on grandeur and excess, often makes use of hyperbole to extend the effect and epic nature of the genre. Modern tall tales also make use of hyperbole to exaggerate the feats and characteristics of their protagonists.
A symbol may be an object, a person, a situation, an action, a word, or an idea that has literal meaning in the story as well as an alternative identity that represents something else. [4] It is used as an expressive way to depict an idea. The symbol generally conveys an emotional response far beyond what the word, idea, or image itself dictates.
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms offers a much broader definition for zeugma by defining it as any case of parallelism and ellipsis working together so that a single word governs two or more parts of a sentence. [17] Vicit pudorem libido timorem audacia rationem amentia. (Cicero, Pro Cluentio, VI.15)
In rhetoric, litotes (/ l aɪ ˈ t oʊ t iː z, ˈ l aɪ t ə t iː z /, US: / ˈ l ɪ t ə t iː z /), [1] also known classically as antenantiosis or moderatour, is a figure of speech and form of irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect.
Figurative (or non-literal) language is the usage of words in a way that deviates from their conventionally accepted definitions in order to convey a more complex meaning or a heightened effect. [1] It is often created by presenting words in such a way that they are equated, compared, or associated with normally unrelated meanings.