| Term | Definition |
|---|
| allegory | story or story elements that deal with a moral truth or a generalization about human existence |
| allusion | a direct or indirect reference to something that is presumably commonly known |
| ambiguity | having multiple meanings |
| antithesis | a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas; parallelism helps to emphasize the opposition of ideas |
| aphorism | a terse statment of known authorship that expresses a general truth or moral principle |
| apostrophe | a figure of speech that addresses and absent or imaginary person; ex: oh God! |
| chiasmus | inverted parallelism |
| clause | grammatical unit that contains a noun and a verb; can be dependent or independent |
| colloquialism | slang or informality in speech or writing |
| conceit | a fanciful expression usually in the form of an extended metaphor |
| connotation | the nonliteral associative meaning of a word |
| denotation | the strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color |
| diction | refers the the writer's word choice in regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness |
| didactic | intended to teach or instruct |
| euphemism | a less offensive substitute for generally unpleasant words or concepts |
| generic conventions | traditions for each genre |
| homily | sermon or any other kind of serious talk, speech or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice |
| hyperbole | a deliberate exaggeration |
| invective | an emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language |
| verbal irony | words literally state the opposite of the writer's true meaning |
| situational irony | events turn out the opposite of what was expected |
| dramatic irony | facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work |
| loose sentence | a type of sentence in which the main idea comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units; makes work seem informal |
| metonymy | a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for another closely associated with it |
| oxymoron | a figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms to suggest a paradox |
| pedantic | an adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or bookish |
| periodic sentence | a sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end; effect is added emphasis and structural variety |
| predicate adjectives | a predicate that serves as an adjective modifying the subject of the sentence |
| predicate nominative | a noun or group of nouns that renames the subject |
| rhetoric | a term that describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively |
| logos | employs logical reasoning |
| ethos | establishes credibility in the speaker as someone who can be trusted and is concerned with the reader's best interests |
| pathos | plays on the readers emotions and interests; causes sympathy |
| exposition | section that explains and analyzes in formation by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion |
| argumentation | purpose is to prove the validity of an idea, or point of view by presenting sound reasoning |
| subordinate clause | word group containing a subject and verb but that cannot stand alone |
| syllogism | deductive system of formal logic that presents two premises, minor and major, that invariably lead to a sound conclusion |
| syntax | the way and author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences; length or brevity of sentences, unusual sentence contructions, patterns, kinds of sentences, questions, declarations, exclamations, rhetorical questions |
| litotes | a type of understatement by which an affirmation is made indirectly by denying its opposition; used for emphasis with negative assertion |
| meiosis | something is referred to in terms less important than it really deserves |
Combine with other sets
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