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Allegory
A story that represents something else.
Mood
The feeling associated with the setting of a literary work.
Homily
A serious talk, speech, sermon, or lecture.
Ambiguity
Having multiple obscure meanings.
Litotes
Ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary.
Sarcasm
The use of irony to mock or ridicule someone or something.
Caricature
Distorting or exaggerating a person's physical features or other characteristics for comic effect.
Conceit
An extended metaphor between dissimilar objects.
Objectivity
An impersonal presentation of events and characters; strictly without judgement.
Diction
An author’s specific word choice.
Antecedent
The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun.
Colloquialism
Informal slang and sayings.
Aphorism
A short statement that expresses a moral truth or saying.
Pedantic
Words that are overly scholarly or academic.
Syllogism
A form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two statements.
Cacophony
Harsh sounds, often used in poetry.
Euphony
Harmonious sounds, often used in poetry.
Subordinate Clause
A clause that cannot stand on its own; often called a dependent clause.
Invective
An emotionally violent, verbal attack using abusive, strong language.
Semantics
The study of the meaning, connotations, and relationships of words.
Conundrum
A riddle whose answer involves a pun; also a paradox or difficult problem.
Repetition
Repeating sounds, words, phrases, clauses, etc.
Concession
An argumentative strategy where the speaker acknowledges the validity of an opponent’s point.
Epiphora
The repetition of words or phrases at the end of several clauses.
Pacing
The movement of a literary piece from one point to another.
Refutation
The part of an argument where a speaker counters an opposing view.
Syntactic Fluency
Ability to create a variety of sentence structures that are complex and/or simple and varied in length.
Coherence/Unity
A piece of writing in which all the parts contribute to the development of the central idea, theme, or organizing principle.
Anachronism
A person, item, or event that doesn’t belong in a certain time period.
Adage
A saying containing a truth based on experience and often couched in metaphorical language.
Lyrical
Songlike, characterized by emotions, subjectivity, and imagination.
Archetype
An ideal version of a type; a typical example; an original model or form.
Bard
A poet; a performer who told heroic stories to musical accompaniment.
Bombast
Inflated, pretentious language.
Abstract
An abbreviated synopsis of a longer piece.
Isocolon
A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure.
Bathos
Insincere or overdone sentimentality.
Perfunctory
Carried out with minimum effort; bare-minimum.
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Flashcard (33)