English Terms

Parallellism

Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

Parenthesis

Insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical flow of the sentence.

Dashes

Used to hold out or extend an idea

Asyndeton

Deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses.

Ellipsis

Deliberate omission of a word or of words which are readily implied by the context.

Alliteration

Repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants.

Anaphora

Repetition of the same word or groups of words at the beginnings of successive clauses.

Epistrophe

Repetition of the same word or group or words at the end of successive clauses.

Climax

The highest point of a story/ most exciting/ emotional point.

Metaphor

Implied comparison between two things of unlike nature.

Simile

Explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature

Metonymy

Substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant.

Personification

Investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities.

Pun

To joke

Onomatopeia

Use of words whose sound echoes the sense.

Hyperbole

The use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.

Litotes

Deliberate use of understatement.

Irony

Use of a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the word.

Oxymoron

The yoking of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory.

Paradox

An apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth.