| Term | Definition |
| allegory | story or work of art in which all major elements are symbolic |
| alliteration | repetition of the FIRST LETTER of words |
| allusion | a reference to something that is widely known (like Martin Luther King or the Titanic) |
| analogy | a compariosn between 2 things for the purpose of explanation. |
| antithesis | placement of 2 opposites next to each other for emphasis |
| apostrophe | Someone absent, dead, or imaginary, or an abstract idea, is being addressed as if it could reply |
| Assonance | repetition of vowel sounds |
| asyndeton | deliberately leaving out conjunctions in order to create an effect |
| concrete language | not figurative language - meant to be taken literally |
| connotation | the feeling or association that accompanies a word |
| consonance | repetition of consonant sounds |
| Denotation | the literal meaning of a word |
| Diction | word choice |
| exposition | writing intended to explain or give background info |
| figurative language | writing that is poetic, metaphorical, not intended to be taken literally (like personification) |
| fallacy | a logical conclusion based on faulty reasoning |
| hyperbole | extreme exaggeration |
| imagery | words used to create visual images or sensory experiences for the reader |
| metaphor | comparison that does not use "like" or "as" |
| metonomy | a term from the Greek meaning "changed label" or "substitute name" __ is a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. For example: a news release that claims "The White House declared" rather than "The President declared" |
| narrative | a story |
| onomatopoeia | words that sound like what they mean |
| oxymoron | figure of speech where two adjacent words seem to contradict each other |
| parable | short simple story, often religious, that teaches a lesson |
| paradox | a seemingly contradictory statement or situation |
| parallelism | using the same sentence construction in corresponding clauses or pharses |
| polysyndeton | using multiple conjunctions between words for emphasis. |
| repetition | repeating a sound, word, syllable or phrase |
| rhetoric | any text designed to persuade |
| simile | comoaring things using like or as |
| symbolism | when physical objects are used to represent abstract ideas |
| syllogism | A logical argument in which a conclusion is inferred from two premises. For example: All teenagers like pizza. Liz is a teenager. Therefore, Liz likes pizza. |
| syntax | sentence structure |
| tone | the mood, attitude, and atmosphere of a piece of writing. |
| passive voice | when the form of the verb indicates that the subject of the sentence receives the action of the verb: "The ball was kicked by the boy." |
| zeugma | When a word within a sentence links to two different words or phrases within the sentence, sometimes using two different meanings. "He was a tough character, one who could knock over a person or a bank without thinking twice." |
| personification | to give human qualities to something inanimate |