English IB Vocab

Allegory

A story whose characters and events represent a larger message. Example: Animal Farm uses farm animals to represent political figures and systems.

Alliteration

Repetition of beginning consonant sounds. Example: Six snakes slithered.

Allusion

A brief reference to a familiar person, event, or work. Example: Calling a weakness an Achilles' heel.

Anaphora

Repetition at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses. Example: We will fight. We will endure. We will win.

Antagonist

A character or force opposing the protagonist. Example: Voldemort opposes Harry Potter.

Apostrophe

Directly addressing someone absent or dead, or something nonhuman. Example: O Death, why do you follow me?

Archetype

A recurring character type, symbol, or story pattern. Example: The wise mentor who guides a young hero.

Aside

A brief comment heard by the audience but supposedly not by other characters. Example: Turning to the audience: He has no idea I am lying.

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words. Example: The rain made the lake look gray.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter. Example: Most of Paradise Lost.

Cacophony

Harsh, jarring combinations of sounds. Example: Clanging carts crashed across cracked concrete.

Chiasmus

Reversal of grammatical structure in nearby phrases: ABBA. Example: She has all my love; my heart belongs to her.

Comic Relief

Humor interrupting a serious moment to ease tension. Example: A nervous character jokes during a frightening scene.

Conceit

An elaborate, extended comparison between very different things. Example: Comparing two lovers to the connected legs of a drawing compass.

Connotation

Feelings or associations connected to a word. Example: Home suggests comfort and belonging.

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds, including in word middles or endings. Example: Black ducks peck.

Couplet

Two consecutive lines of poetry, often rhyming. Example: The stars above are shining bright; They guide me safely through the night.

Denotation

A word's literal dictionary meaning. Example: Home means the place where someone lives.

Denouement

The part after the climax where remaining problems are resolved. Example: After the villain's defeat, the characters return home and rebuild.

Diction

A writer's choice of words. Example: Residence sounds more formal than home.

Didactic

Intended to teach a lesson, often a moral one. Example: A fable teaching readers not to lie.

Dissonance

A clash of sounds or elements that creates tension or discomfort. Example: A cheerful nursery rhyme describing something disturbing.

Dramatic Irony

The audience knows something a character does not. Example: The audience knows the killer is upstairs, but the character walks up.

End Rhyme

Rhyming words at the ends of poetic lines. Example: I watched the fading light Disappearing into the night.

Enjambment

A sentence continues into the next poetic line without a pause at the line break. Example: I followed you beyond / the final bend.

Epistolary

Told through letters, diary entries, or similar documents. Example: A story presented entirely through two friends' letters.

Epigraph

A short quotation at the beginning of a work or section. Example: A quotation about revenge opens a chapter and introduces its theme.

Euphemism

A softer expression replacing something unpleasant or blunt. Example: Passed away instead of died.

Euphony

Pleasant, smooth combinations of sounds. Example: Soft moonlight flows over the silent sea.

First-Person Narration

A narrator tells the story using I or we. Example: I opened the door and saw her standing there.

Flat Character

A character developed around only one or a few traits. Example: A guard whose only developed quality is strictness.

Foil

A character whose differences highlight another character's traits. Example: A cautious friend highlights the hero's recklessness.

Foreshadowing

An early hint about something that happens later. Example: A loose railing appears early; later, someone falls from it.

Free Verse

Poetry without a regular meter or rhyme scheme. Example: The street empties / one window / still awake.

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration for emphasis. Example: I have told you a million times.

Iamb

A metrical foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. Example: a-WAY or be-LONG: da-DUM.

Imagery

Descriptive language appealing to the senses. Example: Warm cinnamon filled the kitchen.

Internal Rhyme

Rhyme within a single poetic line. Example: The light burned bright beside me.

Juxtaposition

Placing contrasting things close together to highlight differences. Example: Describing a mansion beside a homeless shelter.

Limited Omniscient Narrator

A third-person narrator with access to one character's thoughts. Example: We know what Maya fears but only observe the other characters.

Metaphor

A comparison describing one thing as another. Example: Her voice was velvet.

Metonymy

Replacing a name with something closely associated with it. Example: The crown means the monarchy.

Monologue

A long speech by one character. Example: A coach delivers a lengthy speech to the team.

Motif

A recurring detail or idea that develops a theme. Example: Repeated locked doors develop a theme of confinement.

Omniscient Narrator

A narrator who can know every character's thoughts and feelings. Example: The narrator explains both the hero's hopes and the villain's fears.

Onomatopoeia

A word that imitates a sound. Example: Buzz, hiss, or crash.

Oxymoron

Two contradictory words placed together. Example: Deafening silence.

Parable

A short story teaching a moral or spiritual lesson. Example: The Good Samaritan teaches compassion toward others.

Paradox

An apparently contradictory statement that reveals a possible truth. Example: The more I learn, the less I know.

Parody

Humorous imitation of a particular work, style, or genre. Example: Rewriting a serious love poem as a dramatic tribute to pizza.

Personification

Giving human qualities to something nonhuman. Example: The wind whispered through the trees.

Prose

Writing arranged in sentences and paragraphs rather than poetic lines. Example: The paragraphs of a typical novel or newspaper article.

Protagonist

The central character whose experiences drive the story. Example: Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment.

Quatrain

A four-line stanza or group of poetic lines. Example: The rain begins to fall, The clouds conceal the light, I hear the night birds call, And disappear from sight.

Refrain

A line or phrase repeated at intervals. Example: Every stanza ends with: And still we carried on.

Round Character

A complex character with several developed traits and motivations. Example: A leader who feels brave, jealous, generous, and insecure.

Satire

Humor, irony, or exaggeration used to criticize faults in society. Example: A story where politicians receive prizes for avoiding work.

Simile

A comparison using like or as. Example: Her voice was like velvet.

Situational Irony

An outcome sharply contradicting what is expected. Example: A fire station burns down.

Slant Rhyme

Words with similar but not identical ending sounds. Example: Hope and up.

Soliloquy

A character speaks private thoughts aloud, usually while alone. Example: Hamlet's To be, or not to be speech.

Sonnet

A 14-line poem with a structured pattern, often in iambic pentameter. Example: A Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains and a final couplet.

Spondee

A metrical foot containing two stressed syllables. Example: STOP! WAIT! - DUM-DUM.

Stock Character

A familiar, conventional character type. Example: The absent-minded professor or greedy merchant.

Stream of Consciousness

Writing following the shifting flow of a character's thoughts. Example: Where is my phone - late again - did I lock the door?

Subtext

An underlying meaning suggested rather than directly stated. Example: You are home early secretly expresses suspicion.

Syllogism

Reasoning with two premises leading to a conclusion. Example: All humans are mortal. Socrates is human. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Symbol

Something concrete representing a larger idea. Example: A broken chain represents freedom.

Synecdoche

A part represents the whole, or the whole represents a part. Example: All hands on deck: hands means sailors.

Syntax

The arrangement of words and phrases in sentences. Example: Into the room she ran changes the usual order of She ran into the room.

Tone

The speaker's or writer's attitude toward the subject. Example: What a brilliant decision, said mockingly, creates a sarcastic tone.

Understatement

Making something seem less serious or important than it is. Example: Calling a destroyed house a little damaged.

Verisimilitude

The appearance of truth or believable reality in a work. Example: Realistic dialogue and everyday details make a fictional school believable.

Verbal Irony

Saying something while meaning something different, often the opposite. Example: Saying Perfect weather! during a thunderstorm.

Verse

Writing arranged in poetic lines, often using rhythm. Example: A poem divided into lines and stanzas.