Common Tropes and Schemes in Rhetoric

Tropes

Figures of speech with an unexpected twist in the meaning of words.

Hyperbole

Composed of exaggerated words or ideals used for emphasis and not to be taken literally. Example: 'I've told you a million times not to call me a liar!'

Irony

A word or phrase is used to mean the opposite of its literal meaning. Example: 'I just love scrubbing the floor.'

Litotes

A deliberate understatement for emphasis. Example: Young lovers are kissing and an observer says: 'I think they like each other.'

Metaphor

A word or phrase is transferred from its literal meaning to stand for something else. Unlike a simile, in which something is said to be 'like' something else, a metaphor says something is something else. Example: 'Debt is a bottomless sea.'

Metonymy

Substitutes an associated word for one that is meant. Example: Using 'top brass' to refer to military officers.

Oxymoron

Connects two contradictory terms. Example: 'Bill is a cheerful pessimist.'

Paradox

Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense. A truth is exposed from this contradiction. Example: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths.'

Personification

Human qualities or abilities are assigned to abstractions or inanimate objects. Example: 'Integrity thumbs its nose at pomposity.'

Paradox

Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense. A truth is exposed from this contradiction. 'Cowards die many times before their deaths.'

Pun

A play on words in which a homophone is repeated but used in a different sense. Examples: 'She was always game for any game.'

Rhetorical Question

A leading question that provokes a thought (not necessarily intended for an answer). Example: 'With all the violence on IV today, is it any wonder kids bring guns to school?'

Simile

A comparison between two things that are not alike but have similarities. Unlike metaphors, similes employ 'like' or 'as.' Example: 'Her eyes are as blue as a robin's egg.'

Synecdoche

A part stands for the whole. Example: 'Tom just bought a fancy new set of wheels.'

Anaphora

The same word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. Example: 'I will fight for you. I will fight to save Social Security. I will fight to raise the minimum wage.'

Anastrophe

Normal word order is changed for emphasis. Example: 'Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.'

Antithesis

Contrasting words, phrases, sentences, or ideas for emphasis (generally used in parallel grammatical structures). Example: 'Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens, not problems, but priorities.'

Apostrophe

A person or an abstract quality is directly addressed, whether present or not. Example: 'Freedom! You are a beguiling mistress.'

Asyndeton

Using no conjunctions to create an effect of speed or simplicity: Veni. Vidi. Vici. 'I came. I saw. I conquered.'

Chiasmus

Taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out; creating a 'crisscross' pattern: Ask not what Your Country Can Do For You, but what You Can Do For Your Country.

Epanalepsis

Repeating a word from the beginning of a clause at the end of the same clause: 'Year chases year.' Or 'Man's inhumanity to man.'

Epistrophe

The same word is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. Example: 'I believe we should fight for justice. You believe we should fight for justice. How can we not, then, fight for justice?'

Parallelism

When the writer establishes similar patterns of grammatical structure and length. Example: 'The bigger they are, the harder they fall.'

Polysyndeton

Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect: 'This term, I am taking biology and English and history and math and music and physics and sociology.'