Figurative Language Terms

Simile

Comparison using like or as

Metaphor

Comparison without using like or as

Hyperbole

An exaggeration

Personification

Giving inanimate objects/animals human characteristics

Pun

Play on words - either their different meanings or upon two different words sounding the same

Alliteration

Repetition of initial sounds

Onomatopoeia

Words that imitate the sound that they name

Irony

When the opposite of what is expected occurs

Synecdoche

Using a part to represent the whole.

Meytonymy

Where a thing or concept is not called by its name but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept.

consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds within a series of words.

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds within a series of words.

Apostrophe

A form of personification in which the absent or dead are spoken to as if present

Paradox

A statement which sounds as if it’s ridiculous or contradicts itself, but when it is examined and taken to its logical conclusion, it might turn out be actually be true

Allusion

A reference to a mythological, literary, historical, or Biblical person, place or thing

Antithesis

The juxtaposition (placing together) of contrasting ideas so that each will appear more striking by the contrast

Oxymoron

Where contrary terms are combined into a single expression

Understatement

The opposite of hyperbole, it deliberately represents something as less than it is