Difficult AP Vocab

Ad hominem fallacy

A fallacy of logic in which a person's character or motive is attacked instead of that person's argument.

Allegory

A story in which the people, places, and things represent general concepts or moral qualities.

Allusion

A brief reference to a person, place, event, or passage in a work of literature or the Bible assumed to be sufficiently well known to be recognized by the reader.

Analogy

A comparison between two things in which the more complex is explained in terms of the more simple.

Anaphora

Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.

Anecdote

A short entertaining account of some happening, frequently personal or biographical.

Appeal to authority/credibility (ethos)

Citation of information from people recognized for their special knowledge of a subject for the purpose of strengthening a speaker or writer's arguments.

Argumentation

Exploration of a problem by investigating all sides of it; persuasion through reason.

Asyndeton

Conjunctions are omitted, producing a fast pace and rapid prose.

Begging the question

A fallacy of logical argumentation that assumes as true the very thing that one is trying to prove.

Cause and effect

Examination of the causes and/or effects of a situation or phenomenon.

Classification as a means of ordering

Arrangement of objects according to class.

Colloquial expression

Words and phrases used in everyday speech but avoided in formal writing.

Concession

When you show an audience that you have anticipated potential opposition and objections, and have an answer for them.

Connotation

The set of associations implied by a word in addition to its literal meaning.

Deduction (deductive reasoning)

A form of reasoning that begins with a generalization, then applies the generalization to a specific case or cases.

Denotation

The literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning.

Diction

A writer's choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language.

Didactic

Instructional, designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson.

Digression

A temporary departure from the main subject in speaking or writing.

Elegiac

Of, relating to, or involving elegy or mourning or expressing sorrow for that which is irrecoverably passed.

Epigraph

A quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme.

Euphemism

The use of a word or phrase that is less direct, but is also less distasteful or less offensive than another.

Expository writing

Writing that explains or analyzes.

False dilemma

A fallacy of logical argument which is committed when too few of the available alternatives are considered.

Figurative language / figures of speech

Language used to create a special effect or feeling; most commonly alliteration, hyperbole, metaphor, etc.

Hyperbole

An extravagant exaggeration of fact, used either for serious or comic effect.

Inductive reasoning

A form of reasoning which works from a body of fact to the formulation of a generalization.

Invective

Of, relating to, or characterized by insult or abuse.

Inverted syntax

Reversing the normal word order of a sentence.

Irony

A method of humorous or sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words is the opposite of their usual meaning.

Verbal irony

Stating the opposite of what is said or meant.

Situational irony

What happens is the opposite of what is expected.

Dramatic irony

The audience is aware of something that the characters on stage are not.

Juxtaposition

Placing two or more things side by side for comparison or contrast.

Litotes

A figure in which an affirmative is expressed by a negation of the contrary.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another by being spoken of as though it were that thing.

Metonymy

A figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute.

Mood

The feeling a piece of literature arouses in the reader.

Motif

A recurring thematic element, especially a dominant idea or a central theme.

Non sequitur

A statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which contradictory terms or ideas are combined.

Parable

A short story from which a lesson may be drawn.

Parallelism

Using the same part of speech or synthetic structure in elements of a series.

Paradox

A statement which seems self-contradictory, but which may be true in fact.

Parody

A literary composition which imitates the characteristic style of a serious work or writer.

Personification

A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstract concept is endowed with human attributes.

Periodic sentence structure

A sentence written so that the full meaning cannot be understood until the end.

Point of view

The way in which something is viewed or considered by a writer or speaker.

Polysyndeton

The use of many conjunctions has the effect of slowing the pace or emphasizing numerous words.

Post hoc fallacy

A fallacy of logic that assumes that an incident that precedes another is the cause of the secondary incident.

Pun

A humorous play on words.

Rhetoric

The art of using words effectively and writing or speaking so as to influence or persuade.

Rhetorical question

A question asked for rhetorical effect to emphasize a point, no answer being expected.

Sarcasm

A type of irony in which a person appears to praise something but actually insults it.

Satire

A literary work in which vices, abuses, absurdities, etc. are held up to ridicule and contempt.

Simile

A figure of speech involving a comparison using like or as.

Stream of consciousness

Technique that records the thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument.

Syllogism

A form of reasoning in which two statements or premises are made and a logical conclusion is drawn.

Symbol

Something that stands for another thing; frequently an object used to represent an abstraction.

Synecdoche

A type of metonymy, it is the rhetorical substitution of a part for the whole.

Syntax

The arrangement of words as elements in a sentence to show their relationship.

Tone

Author's attitude toward the subject matter.

Understatement

Deliberately representing something as much less than it really is.

Vernacular

The characteristic language of a particular group, often slang or informal.

Wit

A message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter.