Pun: A play on words created by using one word to suggest two different meanings, both of which seem appropriate in the context of the sentence/paragraph, even though the meanings they suggest may be different or opposite.

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall hang separately.”   -Ben Franklin

Figurative Language: a type of communication that does not use a word's strict or realistic meaning.

1. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” - Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

Double Entendre: a word or phrase that is open to two interpretations, one of which is usually risqué or indecent.

1. “Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?/Ophelia: No, my lord!/Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap?/Ophelia: Ay, my lord.” - Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Onomatopoeia: the naming of a thing or action by imitation of natural sounds.

1. “And, as in uffish thought, he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!” - “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll

Simile:  a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as.

1. “She entered with ungainly struggle like some huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop.” - The Adventure of the Three Gables by Arthur Conan Doyle

Metaphor: a figure of speech that makes a non-literal comparison between two unlike things (typically by saying that something is something else).

1. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” - “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes

Analogy: a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

1. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he, not Romeo call’d, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title.” - Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

Conceit: a fanciful expression in writing or speech; an elaborate metaphor.

1. “Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,/Her forehead ivory white/Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,/Her lips like cherries charming men to bite” - “Epithalamion” by Edmund Spenser

Personification: the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

1. “Because I could not stop for Death –/He kindly stopped for me –/The Carriage held but just Ourselves –  /And Immortality.” -  “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson

Zeguma: using one word to modify two other words, in two different ways. 

“Yet time and her aunt moved slowly — and her patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tete-a-tete was over.” - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Allegory: a story, poem, or work of art that has a hidden meaning or message, usually a moral.

1. Animal Farm by George Orwell is a political allegory pertaining to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the rise of communism.

Fable: a short story that teaches a lesson or conveys a moral.

1. Stories like “The Golden Touch”, “The Goose With the Golden Eggs”, and “The Ant and the Grasshopper”.

Metonymy: the use of a linked term to stand in for an object or concept.

1. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;” - Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa.

1. “A plague o' both your houses!” - Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

Apposition: a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way.

1. “In an armchair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. She was dressed in rich materials—satins, and lace and silks—all of white.” - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 

Epithet: an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned.

1. In The Odyssey, Homer refers to Odysseus many times as “son of Laertes,” Penelope as “wife of Odysseus,” Eurymachus as “son of Polybus,” and Zeus as “king of kings.”

Hyperbole: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

1. "It's a slow burg-I spent a couple of weeks there one day." - “The People, Yes” by Carl Sandburg

Understatement: the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is.

1. “'I think so,' said Professor McGonagall dryly, 'we teachers are rather good at magic, you know.’” - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Litotes: an ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary.

1. “You know, it’s really not that hard to put food on the table if that’s what you decide to do.” - The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wall

Euphemism: a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.

1. “To beguile the time,/Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,/Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent flower,/But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming/Must be provided for; and you shall put/This night’s great business into my dispatch,/Which shall to all our nights and days to come/Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.”

Paradox: a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

1. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" - Animal Farm by George Orwell

Oxymoron: a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

1. “O heavy lightness, serious vanity,/Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!/Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,/Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!” - Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

Allusion: an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text.

1. “See what a grace was seated on this brow,/Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,/An eye like Mars’ to threaten and command …” - Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Rhetoric of Parallelism/Parallel Structure: Coordinated ideas are arranged in phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that balance one element with another of equal importance and similar wording.

1. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Rhetoric of Ellipsis: the omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader for the sentence to be understood.

1. “I grow old ... I grow old .../I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”  - “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”  by T.S. Elliot

Rhetoric of Antithesis: the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses.

1. In The Chronicles Of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Aslan represents the side of good, whereas the White Witch comes down on the side of evil, sometimes even being compared to Satan.

Asyndeton: the omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence.

1. “He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac.” - On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Polysyndeton: the repeated use of coordinating conjunctions to connect different items in a sentence.

1. “Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so—but still they admired her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one whom they would not object to know more of.” - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Anaphora: the use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to avoid repetition, such as do in I like it and so do they.

1. “In every cry of every Man,/In every infant's cry of fear,/In every voice, in every ban” - "London," William Blake

Anadiplosis: the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of a sentence and then again at the beginning of the next sentence.

1. “Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,/When I give I give myself.” - Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

Isocolon: a rhetorical term for a successive group of phrases, clauses, or sentences with relatively equal length and corresponding structure.

1. “I came, I saw, I conquered.” - Julius Caesar

Chiasmus: a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form.

1. “And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them.” - “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

Exclamation: a sudden cry or remark, especially expressing surprise, anger, or pain.

1. “But O for the touch of a vanished hand,/And the sound of a voice that is still!” - “Break, Break, Break” by Lord Tennyson

Parenthesis: a word, clause, or sentence inserted as an explanation or afterthought into a passage that is grammatically complete without it, in writing usually marked off by curved brackets, dashes, or commas.

1. “—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture/I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident/the art of losing’s not too hard to master/though it may look like (Write it!) like a disaster.” - “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop 

Apostrophe: a mark ' used to indicate the omission of letters or figures, the possessive case (as in "John's book"), or the plural of letters or figures (as in "the 1960's") AND/OR the addressing of a usually absent person or a usually personified thing rhetorically.

1. “O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,/The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,” - “O Captain! My Captain” - Walt Whitman

Style: the way in which an author writes and/or tells a story.

1. Rick Riordan generally used a humorous tone in the Percy Jackson series, with Percy addressing the reader directly a few times.

Diction: the linguistic choices a writer makes to effectively convey an idea, a point of view, or tell a story.

1. This is an example of a more casual diction: “You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ’em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change.” - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Syntax: word order, tense, subject-verb agreement, and even sentence length.

1. We ate pasta for dinner. vs. For dinner, we ate pasta.

Organization/Structure: the organizational method of the written material.

1. In poetry: free verse, haiku, limerick, sonnet, etc.

Narrative Structure/Narration: the way in which a story is organized and presented to the reader or audience.

1. Three-act structure, the heroine’s journey, linear plot structure, circle structure, etc.

Detail: the bits of factual information (about the setting, character, action, etc.) that help the reader understand better.

1. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.” - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Theme: a universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature.

1. Good versus evil, nature, kindness, family, power, etc.

Tone: the writer's attitude toward or feelings about the subject matter and audience.

1. Bitter, admiring, solemn, bright, etc.

Mood/Attitude: the overall atmosphere or feeling of a piece of writing.

1. Romantic, cheerful, calm, gloomy, nostalgic, etc. 

Humor: a literary tool that makes audiences laugh, or that intends to induce amusement or laughter.

1. “You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.” - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Dramatic Irony: when the audience or reader knows something that the characters don't.

1. In Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare, Romeo drinks poison, killing himself in front of the audience in the mistaken belief that his love Juliet is dead.

Verbal Irony: is when you say the opposite of what you mean.

1. "But Brutus says he was ambitious;/And Brutus is an honourable man." - Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

Situational Irony: when the opposite of what is expected happens, often to humorous effect.

1. Romeo believes Juliet, who is simply drugged, has killed herself, so he kills himself as well. When she wakes and finds him dead beside her, she too takes her own life. -  Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

Sarcasm: the use of irony in order to mock or convey contempt toward a person or subject.

1. During Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Mark Antony delivers a very sarcastic speech about Brutus.

Satire: the art of ridiculing or critiquing a person, situation, or social belief system through storytelling.

1. Animal Farm by George Orwell, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, etc.

Language Literal Meaning: used to mean exactly what is written.

1. I ate a slice of cake means that I literally ate a slice of cake.

Language Metaphorical/Figurative Meaning: the use of words in a way that deviates from the conventional order and meaning in order to convey a complicated meaning, colorful writing, clarity, or evocative comparison.

1. Simile, metaphor, hyperbole, oxymoron, etc.

Language Formal: often defined by means of a formal grammar such as regular grammar or context-free grammar, which consists of its formation rules.

Language Informal: more casual and spontaneous. It is used when communicating with friends or family either in writing or in conversation.

Language Colloquial: the linguistic style used for casual communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversation and other informal contexts.

Language Connotative: the use of a word to suggest a different association than its literal meaning.

1. Proud, confident, arrogant, egotistical, etc.

Language Denotative: its main meaning, not including the feelings and ideas that people may connect with that word.

1. The boy was pushy. (He was literally pushing people.)

Language Abstract: refers to intangible qualities, ideas, and concepts.

1. Love, freedom, honor, truth, grace, etc.

Language Concrete: tangible or perceivable characteristics in the real world.

1. Adjectives (soft, smooth, purple, cold, etc.), Nouns (California, doctor, flower, tissue)

Language Simple: writing designed to ensure the reader understands as quickly, easily, and completely as possible.

Hungry instead of famished and quickly instead of expeditiously

Language Pretentious: expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature.

1. Famished instead of hungry and expeditiously instead of quickly.

External Conflict: a struggle that occurs between a character and an external force, such as another character, society, nature, or a situation.

1. Character vs. nature, character vs. society, character vs. character, etc.

Internal Conflict: the struggle between a character's emotions, values, desires, traits, and interests that might stop them from achieving their goal.

1. Character vs. self, etc.

Suspense: the audience's excited anticipation about the plot or conflict.

1. "The Iron Shroud" by William Mudford and "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe

Verse Form: any structured form that a poem takes.

1. Free verse, haiku, limerick, sonnet, etc.

Blank Verse: poetry that does not rhyme but follows a regular meter, most commonly iambic pentameter.

1. All or most of Shakespeare’s writing.

Free Verse: poetry without a strict meter or rhyme scheme.

1. “After the Sea-Ship” by Walt Whitman, “Fog” by Carl Sandburg.

Lyric Poetry: a short poem, often with songlike qualities, that expresses the speaker's personal emotions and feelings.

1. “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe

Movement of Verse: the way a poem's structure, rhythm, and meter create a sense of motion or flow within the poem.

1. Meter, rhyme scheme, etc.

Rhyme: a repetition of similar sounds in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words.

1. Stay, may, day, lay.

Rhyme Scheme: a poet's deliberate pattern of lines that rhyme with other lines in a poem or a stanza.

1. “My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.” - “Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare

Rhythm: the beat and pace of a poem.

1. Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone," which is a poem where the meter is iambic, and Emily Dickinson's "Will There Really Be a Morning?", which is trochaic.

Meter: the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse.

1. That time/of year/thou mayst/in me/be hold - "Sonnet 73" by William Shakespeare

Devices of Sound: anything writers use that improves or emphasizes the sound in a piece of writing.

1. Alliteration, allusion, metaphor, etc.

Alliteration: the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

1. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

Assonance: in poetry, the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible (e.g., penitence, reticence ).

1. "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" - Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

Consonance: the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are different.

1. "He gives his harness bells a shake/To ask if there is some mistake./The only other sound's the sweep/Of easy wind and downy flake." - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Refrain: the line or lines that are repeated in music or in poetry.

1. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,/But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/And miles to go before I sleep.” - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Ethos, Pathos & Logos (Aristotelian Appeals): ethos (the rhetor's credibility), logos (logic or rationality), and pathos (emotion).

1. Ethos: a doctor; logos: facts; pathos: a dog

Rhetorical Questions: a question asked to make a point, rather than get an answer.

1. Who knows?; Why not?; Are you kidding?; etc.

Ad Hominem Device/Argument: this fallacy occurs when, instead of addressing someone's argument or position, you irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument.

1. “This is why a woman shouldn’t do a man's job.”

Logical Fallacies: make an argument weak by using mistaken beliefs/ideas, invalid arguments, illogical arguments, and/or deceptiveness.

1. The fallacy of Four Terms, Slippery Slope, Circular Argument, Hasty Generalization, etc.

Syllogism: an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn (whether validly or not) from two given or assumed propositions (premises), each of which shares a term with the conclusion, and shares a common or middle term not present in the conclusion.

1. All cars have wheels. I drive a car. Therefore, my car has wheels.

Inductive Reasoning: a method of drawing conclusions by going from the specific to the general.

1. The left-handed people I know use left-handed scissors; therefore, all left-handed people use left-handed scissors

Deductive Reasoning: a logical approach where you progress from general ideas to specific conclusions.

1. All numbers ending in 0 or 5 are divisible by 5. The number 35 ends with a 5, so it must be divisible by 5.

The Grotesque: freakish caricatures of people's appearance and behavior, as in the novels of Dickens.

1. The portrait of Dorian Gray at the end of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

Anachronism: a literary device that places someone or something associated with a particular historical time in the wrong time period.

1. A knight wearing a wristwatch in a movie set in the medieval era.