english pap sem exam

hyperbole

extravagant exaggeration

imagery

the ability to form mental pictures of things or events

allusion

passing reference or indirect mention

metaphor

a figure of speech that suggests a non-literal similarityap

aphorism

a short pithy instructive saying

meter

a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse

metonymy

substituting the name of a feature for the name of the thing

oxymoron

conjoined contradictory terms

consonance

the repitition of sounds especially at the ends of words

assonance

the repetition of similar vowels in successive words

alliteration

use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word

simile

a figure of speech expressing a resemblance between things

idiom

expression whose meaning cannot be inferred from its words

litotes

understatement for rhetorical effect

symbolism

the practice of investing things with arbitrary meaning

analogy

drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity

personification

attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas

irony

incongruity between what is expected and what occurs

parody

a composition that imitates or misrepresents a style

ode

a lyric poem with complex stanza forms

synecdoche

using part of something to refer to the whole thing

double entendre

a word or phrase with two meanings, one of which is indecent

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pun

a play on words

point of view

the perspective from which a story is told

parallelism

repetition of similar or equivalent syntactic constructions

repetition

the continued use of the same word or word pattern

rhetorical question

an inquiry that is not supposed to be answered

theme

a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in literary work

logos

a rhetorical appeal to the audience's reason or rationality

ethos

a rhetorical appeal that relies on the character or credibility of the speaker

pathos

a quality that arouses emotions, especially pity or sorrow

anecdote

short account of an incident

chiasmus

inversion in the second of two parallel phrases