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The original meaning was similar to "the game is afoot", but its modern meaning, like that of the phrase "crossing the Rubicon", denotes passing the point of no return on a momentous decision and entering into a risky endeavor where the outcome is left to chance. alenda lux ubi orta libertas: Let light be nourished where liberty has arisen
Adianoeta – a phrase carrying two meanings: an obvious meaning and a second, more subtle and ingenious one (more commonly known as double entendre). Alliteration – the use of a series of two or more words beginning with the same letter. Amphiboly – a sentence that may be interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous structure.
Phrase. In grammar, a phrase —called expression in some contexts—is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consist of a single word or a complete sentence.
Loaded language (also known as loaded terms, strong emotive language, high-inference language, language-persuasive techniques, and rhetorical language) is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations. This type of language is very often made vague to more effectively invoke an emotional response and ...
In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units (often collectively referred to as phrasemes ), in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than, or otherwise not predictable from, the sum of their meanings when used independently. For example, ‘ Dutch auction ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example " kick the bucket " below). [1 ...
Lexical semantics (also known as lexicosemantics ), as a subfield of linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings. [1] [2] It includes the study of how words structure their meaning, how they act in grammar and compositionality, [1] and the relationships between the distinct senses and uses of a word. [2]
Literal usage confers meaning to words, in the sense of the meaning they have by themselves. [2] It maintains a consistent meaning regardless of the context, [3] with the intended meaning of a phrase corresponding exactly to the meaning of its individual words. [4] On the contrary, figurative use of language (a later offshoot being the term figure of speech) is the use of words or phrases with ...