literary terms latin virgil

alliteration

A sound effect created by the repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of multiple words.

consonance

The repetition of consonantal sounds within words.

sibilance

The alliteration of s-sounds, often with a harsh or threatening effect.

anaphora

Repetition of a word or phrase introducing two or more statements in proximity, thereby emphasising their interrelation.

antithesis

Words of opposite meaning placed in such a way as to draw attention to the contrast they create.

apostrophe

An appeal by the poet to a person or thing generally outside the narrative.

assonance

A repetition of vowel sounds in words in close proximity, with a similar effect to alliteration.

asyndeton

A lack of conjunctions joining words, phrases or clauses; often used to give a sense of pace.

chiasmus

A word order A-B-B-A which tends to hold two parallel phrases together in a rhetorical whole.

enjambement

A word or phrase is carried over from one line into the next, placing emphasis on that word with the sense of the clause.

hendiadys

Two words or phrases used to express a single idea, placing greater emphasis on that concept.

hypallage (transferred epithet)

The transfer of an adjective from the noun to which it should belong to another in the same phrase.

hyperbaton

The separation of syntactically connected words by intervening words that are not part of the same phrase.

hyperbole (exaggeration)

Emphasising an image by taking it beyond what might be considered plausible.

litotes

Understatement in which a negative, often double-negative, statement gives more emphasis to the positive meaning created.

metaphor

The use of a word or phrase in a non-literal sense.

metonymy

Indirect reference to something by a thing related to it, especially a god or goddess.

onomatopoeia

A word that sounds like what it means.

oxymoron

Words of apparently contradictory meaning are placed together to powerful effect.

parenthesis

The enclosure of one phrase within another, forcing it to be taken as in some sense dependent.

polyptoton

The repetition of a word stem with different endings.

polysyndeton

The repeated use of conjunctions, sometimes more than is necessary, either giving a sense of rapidity or stressing the number of items in a sequence.

rhetorical question

A question which is not intended to be answered, used as a stronger alternative to a statement.

simile

The comparison of one thing with another.

synchysis

An interlocking order of two pairs of words; the words that syntactically go together are separated.

synecdoche

Part of something used in reference to the whole.

tricolon

A series of three parallel clauses usually used to emphasise an image or argument.