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When the prefix "re-" is added to a monosyllabic word, the word gains currency both as a noun and as a verb. Most of the pairs listed below are closely related: for example, "absent" as a noun meaning "missing", and as a verb meaning "to make oneself missing". There are also many cases in which homographs are of an entirely separate origin, or ...
A simile (/ ˈ s ɪ m əl i /) is a type of figure of speech that directly compares two things. [1] [2] Similes are often contrasted with metaphors, where similes necessarily compare two things using words such as "like", "as", while metaphors often create an implicit comparison (i.e. saying something "is" something else).
It has been argued that the two poles of similarity and contiguity are fundamental ones along which the human mind is structured; in the study of human language the two poles have been called metaphor and metonymy, while in the study of the unconscious they have been called condensation and displacement. [2]
It is similar in use to an acid test, or a litmus test in politics. The word was introduced into literary criticism by Matthew Arnold in "Preface to the volume of 1853 poems" (1853) to denote short but distinctive passages, selected from the writings of the greatest poets, which he used to determine the relative value of passages or poems which ...
Semantic similarity is a metric defined over a set of documents or terms, where the idea of distance between items is based on the likeness of their meaning or semantic content [citation needed] as opposed to lexicographical similarity. These are mathematical tools used to estimate the strength of the semantic relationship between units of ...
The following sentences and verses possess "similarity in structure" in words and phrases: She tried to make the law clear, precise and equitable. [2] In the quote above, the compounded adjectives serve as parallel elements and support the noun "law". Her purpose was to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and to confound the ...
The typical example sentence used to typify this phenomenon is More people have been to Russia than I have. [ 4 ] [ b ] The effect has also been observed in other languages. Some studies have suggested that, at least in English, the effect is stronger for sentences whose predicate is repeatable.
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 ...