Society & Culture & Entertainment Languages

Figures, Tropes, and Other Rhetorical Terms (page three)


Balance, Antithesis, and Paradox

  • antimetabole
    A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the words in reverse grammatical order (A-B-C, C-B-A).


  • antithesis
    Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
  • auxesis
    A gradual increase in intensity of meaning with words arranged in ascending order of force or importance.
  • chiasmus
    A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
  • climax
    Mounting by degrees through words or sentences of increasing weight and in parallel construction, with an emphasis on the high point or culmination of a series of events or of an experience.
  • hypophora
    Raising questions and answering them.
  • isocolon
    A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure.
  • litotes
    A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
  • oxymoron
    A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
  • paradox
    A statement that appears to contradict itself.
  • polysyndeton
    A style that employs a great many conjunctions.

Emotional Appeals (Pathos)

  • antirrhesis
    Rejecting an argument because of its insignificance, error, or wickedness.


  • aposiopesis
    An unfinished thought or broken sentence.
  • apostrophe
    Rhetorical term for breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
  • bdelygmia
    A litany of abuse--a series of critical epithets, descriptions, or attributes. A type of invective.
  • categoria
    Direct exposure of an adversary's faults.
  • ecphonesis
    An exclamation expressing emotion.
  • encomium
    Tribute or eulogy in prose or verse glorifying people, objects, ideas, or events.
  • epiplexis
    Asking questions to reproach rather than to elicit answers.
  • euphemism
    Substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
  • meiosis
    To belittle, use a degrading epithet or nickname, often through a trope of one word.
  • pathos
    The means of persuasion in classical rhetoric that appeals to the audience's emotions.
  • sarcasm
    A mocking, often ironic or satirical remark intended to wound.
  • tapinosis
    Undignified language that debases a person or thing. Generally considered a vice, not a self-conscious technique.

Metaphorical Substitutions and Puns

  • allegory
    Extending a metaphor through an entire speech or passage so that objects, persons, and actions in the text are equated with meanings that lie outside the text.
  • antanaclasis
    (1) One word used in two contrasting (and often comic) senses. (2) Homonymic pun.
  • antistasis
    Repetition of a word in a different or a contrary sense.
  • antonomasia
    Substitution of a title, epithet, or descriptive phrase for a proper name (or of a personal name for a common name) to designate a member of a group or class.
  • catachresis
    An extreme, far-fetched, or mixed metaphor; strained or deliberately paradoxical figure of speech; substitution of an inexact word in place of the correct one.
  • euphemism
    Substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
  • fable
    Fictional story meant to teach a moral lesson.
  • hyperbole
    An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
  • irony
    Use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.
  • meiosis
    To belittle, use a degrading epithet or nickname, often through a trope of one word.
  • metaphor
    An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.
  • metonymy
    A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.
  • parable
    A story, usually short and simple, that illustrates a lesson.
  • paronomasia
    Punning, playing with words.
  • pun
    A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
  • simile
    A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.
  • synecdoche
    A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.
  • tapinosis
    Undignified language that debases a person or thing. Generally considered a vice, not a self-conscious technique.

Omission of Words, Phrases, and Clauses

  • asyndeton
    Omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses.
  • brachylogy
    A concise or condensed form of expression in speech or writing.
  • ellipsis
    Omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader.
  • syllepsis
    A kind of ellipsis in which one word (usually a verb) is understood differently in relation to two or more other words, which it modifies or governs.
  • zeugma
    Use of a word to modify or govern two or more words although its use may be grammatically or logically correct with only one.

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