Lang Tropes & Schemes

Trope: Allusion (He was a real Romeo with the ladies.)

indirect reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical or cultural significance.

Trope: Anthimeria (I need to paper my room.)

The substitution of one part of speech for another. Normally turning a noun into a verb

Trope: Hyperbole (I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.)

Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

Trope: Irony (When there is a bad, dark, rainy day, someone says “What a beautiful day!”)

the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

Trope: Metaphor (All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.)

A comparison between two things that are not alike in most ways but are alike in one important way

Trope: Metonymy (The White House issued a statement.)

A word or phrase that is used to represent something else by association

Trope: Oxymoron (seriously funny)

A phrase that contains two contradictory terms

Trope: Paradox (The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know.)

A statement that seems contradictory but is actually true

Trope: Personification (The wind whispered through the trees.)

The giving of human characteristics to non-human things

Trope: Pun (Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field.)

A joke or play on words that exploits multiple meanings of a word or words, or similar-sounding words

Trope: Simile (As brave as a lion)

A figure of speech that makes a comparison using "like" or "as."

Trope: Synecdoche (The police arrived in four cars.)

A word or phrase that is used to represent a whole by one of its parts

Trope: Understatement (litotes) (It's just a flesh wound.)

Deliberately representing something as much less than it really is.

Scheme: alliteration (Sally sells seashells by the seashore.)

The repetition of the same initial consonant sounds in a series of words.

Scheme: anaphora (MLK’s I have a dream speech)

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.

Scheme: epistrophe (Where now? Who now? When now?)

The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses.

Scheme: parallelism (Easy come, easy go.)

The use of similar grammatical structures or patterns in a series of words or phrases.

Scheme: antimetabole (Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.)

The repetition of words in successive clauses, but in reverse order.

Scheme: antithesis (To be or not to be, that is the question.)

The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

Scheme: circumlocution (The book describing scene from 3 Idiots)

The use of excessive words to express an idea indirectly.

Scheme: climax (When it rains, it pours)

The arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing importance.

Scheme: hypophora (What should we do about climate change? Take action and reduce our carbon footprint.)

The raising and then immediately answering of a question.

Scheme: juxtaposition (It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.)

The placement of two or more things (usually abstract concepts, though it can involve physical objects) near each other.

Scheme: rhetorical question (Are you kidding me?)

A question asked for effect or to emphasize a point, not to elicit an answer.

Scheme: zeugma (He stole my heart and my wallet.)

A figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses.

Scheme: polysyndeton (They sang and danced and laughed and played.)

The use of several conjunctions (usually and) in close succession.

Scheme: asyndeton (I came, I saw, I conquered.)

The removing of conjunctions in a series of related clauses.