| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Connotation | the suggested meaning of a word apart from its direct meaning |
| Denotation | the specific, word-for-word, dictionary meaning of a word |
| Dialect | language distinguished by geographical region |
| Epithet | descriptive word or phrase used to categorize a person or group of people |
| Fable | a short fictitious story, often involving personified animals, to illustrate a moral (secular) |
| Figurative | language not meant to be taken literally |
| Genre | category, type, or kind |
| Hyperbole | exaggeration for literary or rhetorical effect |
| Idiom | figurative words or phrases that are peculiar to a given language, especially those that do not translate from one language to another |
| Innuendo | implication, insinuation; a meaning not stated directly but more subtly hinted |
| Jargon | highly specialized language distinguished by common interest such as profession, hobby, etc |
| Metaphor | a direct comparison between two things that are unlike, in order to show a similarity |
| Misogyny | the disrespect or hatred of women |
| Moral | a dogmatic message delivered in a work of art; presumes to tell the audience right from wrong |
| Myth | an imaginative story invented in an attempt to explain the unexplained |
| Parable | a short fictitious story that symbolically illustrates a moral, especially a religious one |
| Philistine | one who is smugly conservative and ignorant of the arts |
| Propaganda | information (both true and false) intended to manipulate people's opinions |
| Pun | humorous play on a word with more than one meaning |
| Reciprocity | a state of equal give and take |
| Satire | art that ridicules, or makes fun of, human ignorance |
| Simile | an indirect comparison, using like or as, between two dissimilar things in order to show similarity |
| Symbolism | the use of concrete words, phrases, images, and objects to represent abstract ideas |
| Zeitgeist | general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era; the "spirit of the time" |
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