Tropes

Simile

An explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have someone in common

ex. You’re as sweet as cotton candy

Metaphor

an implied comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in common

ex. your a peach

Pun

A play on words

ex. a bicycle can’t stand on its own because its two tired

Antanaclasis

A repetition of a word in two different senses

ex. Your argument is sound nothing but sound

Paronomasia

Use of words alike in sound but different in meaning

ex. Independence is what a boy feels all he wants from his father is a loan

Syllepsis

Use of word understood differently in relation to two or more other words, which it modifies or governs

ex. I live in shame and the suburbs

Anthimeria

The substitution of one part of speech for another

ex. They whacked-whacked the white horse on the legs and kneed himself up

Periphrasis

Substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name or of a proper name for a quality associated with that name

ex. My mother”s mother (grandmother)

Personification

Investing objects with human qualities/ addressing an absent person for a personified abstraction(vocative)

ex. O!eloquent, and mighty death!

Hyperbole

The use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect

ex. We walked along a road in […] because the sky hung so low

Metonymy

Substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant

ex. Crown for royalty, pen for writers for

Synecdoche

A figure of speech where a part represents a whole

ex. you have nice wheels

(You have a nice car)

Litotes

Deliberate use of understatement, not to deceive but to enhance the expressiveness of what we say

ex. “I went to mota, and we have a couple of good musicians”

Rhetorical question

Asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely

Ex. “A good student body is perhaps the most important factor in a great university. How can you make good wine from poor grapes?”

Irony

Use of a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning

ex. “The marriage counselor is having a divorce”

Onomatopoeia

Use of words whose sound a goes the sense

ex. “Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark in yard”

Oxymoron

The yoking of two words

ex. “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. Why then, O brawling love? O loving hate. Anything of nothing first create”

Paradox

An apparent contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth

Ex. “Art is a form of lying in order to tell the truth”