20 Tropes & Schemes

alliteration

Repetition of the same consonant sound beginning
two or more words in a sequence

allusion

Brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or
fictitious, or to a work of art with whom the reader
is expected to be familiar

anaphora

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of
successive phrases, clauses, or lines

antimetabole

Repetition of words in reverse (flipped) order

antithesis

Opposition or contrast of ideas or words in a
balanced or parallel construction

archaic diction

Old-fashioned or outdated choice of words

asyndeton

Omission of conjunctions between coordinate
phrases, clauses, or words

cumulative sentence

Sentence that completes the subject and verb at the beginning of the sentence and then builds and adds on

hortative sentence

Sentence that exhorts, advises, calls to action
("Let us...")

imperative sentence

A sentence used to command, enjoin, implore, or entreat

inversion

Inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of the subject-verb-object order)

juxtaposition

Placement of two things closely together to
emphasize comparisons or contrasts

metaphor

Figure of speech that says one thing is another in
order to explain by comparison

metonymy

A figure of speech that uses a single feature to
represent the whole

oxymoron

A paradoxical juxtaposition of words that seem to contradict one another

parallelism

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

periodic sentence

Sentence whose main clause (subject and verb) is
withheld until the end

personification

Attribution of a lifelike (usually human) quality to an inanimate object or idea

rhetorical question

Figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer.

zeugma

Use of a word (usually a verb) in two ways, producing different, often incongruous meanings