| Term | Definition |
|---|
| absolute | a word free from limitations or qualifications ("best,"all","unique","perfect") |
| adage | a familiar proverb or wise saying |
| ad hominem argument | an argument attacking an individual's character rather than his or her position on an issue |
| allegory | a literary work in which characters,objects, or actions represent abstractions |
| alliteration | the repetition of initial sounds in successive or neighboring words |
| allusion | a reference to something literary,mythological,or historical that the author assumes the reader will recognize |
| analogy | a comparison of two different things that are similar in some way |
| anaphora | the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of consecutive lines or sentences |
| anecdote | a brief narrative that focuses on a particular incident or event |
| apostrophe | a figure of speech in which one directly addresses an absent or imaginary person,or some abstraction |
| archetype | a detail,image,or character type that occurs frequently in literature and myth and is thought to appeal in a universal way to the unconscious and to evoke a response |
| asyndeton | a construction in which elements are presented in a series without conjunctions |
| chiasmus | a statement consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is structurally reversed ("Susan walked in,and out rushes Mary") |
| cliche | an expression that has been overused to the extent that its freshness has worn off |
| colloquialism | informal words or expressions not usually acceptable in formal writing |
Combine with other sets
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