AP Language and Composition Terms April 2025

absolute

a whole object; everyone, everything, nothing

adage

Short-statement expressing a general truth with an anonymous or unknown author

ad hominem

Against the man; personal attack instead of an attack on a person's argument

aesthetic

Visually pleasing; how something looks

allegory

The elements of a story going beyond a literal meaning [Ex: Animal Farm]

allusion

A reference to something

anachronism

Something that is out of place [A car in the Jurassic Period, a phone in the Medieval Eras]

anecdote

Small, usually personal short story

anadiplosis

Repetition of the last word in a repeated clause [Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side.]

anaphora

The use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to avoid repetition, such as do in I like it and so do they. /// the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.

antecedent

preceding in time or order; previous or preexisting.

antithesis

Contrast between two opposing ideas in parallel structure

aphorism

[A penny saved is a penny earned] (Similar to an adage)

asyndeton

Skipping coordinating conjunctions. [I came. I saw. I conquered] [Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.]

balanced

One sentence with two clauses (Similar to compound sentences, two independent clauses)

bathos

Shifting from something serious to something silly.

bildungsroman

A coming of age story. [Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Divergent, etc.]

catharsis

Releasing strong emotions

chiasmus

a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form; e.g. 'Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.'.

claim

Your opinion or the argument that you're making.

colloquial

"Everyday language."

commentary

Explanations towards your claim.

complex sentence

A sentence with one or more independent clauses and one dependent clauses. (One of each)

compound sentence

a sentence that combines two or more independent clauses.

conceit

A metaphor between two seemingly unrelated items.

concrete detail

A specific piece of evidence. [Like the ones we write in essays as evidence]

connotation

Attached or perceived meaning.

cumulative sentence

A longer sentence where the main clause is placed at the beginning, and then it's followed by phrases and dependent clauses.

declarative sentence

A sentence that states or declare something. [The sky is blue.]

deductive reasoning

Logical thinking that moves from general to specific. (Top-down)

denotation

The literal meaning of a word.

dialect

Regional language.

dialogue

A conversation between characters in a story.

diction

Word-choice.

didactic

Instructions or steps. [Ex: Wiki How guides]

dilemma

A difficult choice in a problem between two different options.

doppelganger

A twin, more often than not with a negative connotation. [Ex: Skinwalkers, Identical Twins, Shapeshifters, etc.]

Epanalepsis

The beginning words (sentence/clause) of something are repeated at the end. (Opposite of anadiplosis) [Ex: The King is dead, long live the king.]

elegy

A text, usually poetic, for the dead.

epigram

Short, often witty and insightful statement, that expresses a clever thought or observation.

epigraph

an inscription on a building, statue, or coin.

epistrophe

the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences.

epithet

A nickname, often highlighting a specific trait of something.

eulogy

A text for the deceased. Different from an elegy because an elegy is usually poetic/musical.

euphemism

A phrase that means something else. [Ex: "Passing away" actually means dying.]

exclamatory sentence

A sentence exclaiming something. [Ex: I love pizza! I hate school!]

fable

A short story involving animals that tells a moral.

fantasy

a genre featuring magical and supernatural elements, often set in imaginary worlds with beings, places, and events that defy the laws of the real world

figurative language

Language who's meaning isn't the same as its literal meaning.

frame device

A story within a story. [Ex: The tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise in Episode III of Star Wars; Frankenstein]

hamartia

Fatal flaw or mistake.

homily

A speech, usually a Sunday sermon.

idiom - Not literal language. [Ex: "It's raining cats and dogs", meaning, it's raining a lot.

Not literal language. [Ex: "It's raining cats and dogs", meaning, it's raining a lot.]

imagery

Language that appeals to the senses, mainly sight.

inductive reasoning

Logical thinking that moves from specific to general. (Bottom-up processing.)

invective

Resorting to insults in an argument.

isocolon

Two or more parallel structures/sentences, a form of repetition.

jargon

Language that is hard to understand for others, such as professional language in law, medicine, or engineering.

limerick

a humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba, popularized by Edward Lear.

literary license (aka artistic/creative license)

Trusting someone with artistic/literary/creative vision.

litote

A form of understatement. [Ex: The sky isn't that big]

loose sentence (aka cummulative sentence)

a type of sentence where the main clause comes first, followed by modifiers (like clauses, phrases, or words) that elaborate on it

malapropism

the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, "dance a flamingo " (instead of flamenco ).

maxim

a short, pithy statement expressing a general truth or rule of conduct.

metonymy

the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.

motif

a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition.

non sequitur

a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.

parable

a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels.

paradox

a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectatio

parallelism

the use of successive verbal constructions in poetry or prose which correspond in grammatical structure, sound, meter, meaning, etc.

parenthetical

Information (in parenthesis)

pedantic - Focusing too much on details instead of the bigger picture.

Focusing too much on details instead of the bigger picture.

periodic sentence

a sentence where the main clause (the independent part with a subject and verb that completes a thought) comes at the end, after one or more subordinate or dependent clauses

philippic

a bitter attack or denunciation, especially a verbal one.

polysyndeton

a literary device that describes the repetition of conjunctions such as "and," "or," and "but," even where they are not necessary for meaning

satire

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

scapegoat

Someone who receives the blame for other people's mistakes. [Ex: The Nazis used the Jews as a scapegoat for Germany's problems before and during WWII.]

simple sentence

a sentence consisting of only one clause, with a single subject and predicate.

solecism

a grammatical mistake in speech or writing.

surrealism

a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.

syllepsis

a figure of speech in which a word is applied to two others in different senses (e.g., caught the train and a bad cold ) or to two others of which it grammatically suits only one (e.g., neither they nor it is working ).

begging the question

a logical fallacy where an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion they are trying to prove

syllogism

an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn (whether validly or not) from two given or assumed propositions (premises), each of which shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the conclusion (e.g., all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs ).

synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning "Cleveland's baseball team").

synethesia

a rhetorical device where one sense is described or experienced in terms of another, creating a blended sensory perception. [Ex: She's feeling blue]

tautology

the saying of the same thing twice in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style (e.g., they arrived one after the other in succession ).

vernacular

the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or region.

zeugma

a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g., John and his license expired last week ) or to two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts ).

dissonance

Inharmonious/unfitting.

hubris

Excessive pride or self-confidence.