Understanding Figures of Speech: A Comprehensive List
Literary Devices and Rhetorical Terms
Alliteration. Repeating the same sound in two or more words.
Anadiplosis. The final word is repeated at the beginning of the next clause.
Anaphora and Epiphora. Repeating one or more words at the beginning (anaphora) or end (epiphora) in successive clauses.
Bimembración. A clause is divided into two parts (or three, called a tricolon) with the same grammatical structure.
Derivation. Use of two or more words coming from the same root.
Enumeration. Construction sequence of words in the same category or type. When climbing or descending, it is called gradation.
Epithet. Nonessential qualifying adjective, which highlights an inherent quality of the noun.
Parallelism. Two clauses have the same syntactic structure.
Paronomasia. Words with similar sounds and different meanings.
Redundancy. Incorporation of words that are not necessary for the understanding of an idea, but strengthen the expressiveness of a phrase.
Polysyndeton. Repetition of conjunctions to emphasize the expression:
The time licks and gnaws and polishes and stains and dies. (Antonio Machado).
Similicadencia. Use of words with the same grammatical accident or similar sounds at the end of two or more clauses.
Antithesis. Juxtaposition of two words or sentences with opposite meanings.
Irony. The implication is the opposite of what is said.
Oxymoron. Juxtaposition of two words of opposite meaning.
Paradox. Use of phrases or expressions that are contradictory.
Allegory. Series of metaphors that connects the elements of a reality with elements mentioned.
Dilogía. Using the same word with different meanings.
Metaphor. Identity between two realities.
Synesthetic Metaphor. Association of elements that evoke sensations perceived by various senses.
Metonymy. It means a thing with the name of another, by their meanings contiguous. Between the real and the figurative term are relations of cause and effect, product / place of origin…
Onomatopoeia. Using words that imitate the sound of what they mean.
Symbol. Element perceived by the senses that suggests something different from its usual meaning.
Simile. Explicit comparison of one thing with another.
Synecdoche. It means one thing with another name with which a relation of inclusion.
Apostrophe. Interrupted speech for spoken strongly in second person, someone or something, or even to himself.
Pun. Grouping of the syllables of a word or words in a way that alters the meaning of these.
Enjambment. Syntactic unit that does not end at the end of a line, but is completed in the following.
Interjection. Expression of exclamatory mood or thoughts.
Hyperbaton. Reversal of regular word order of a sentence.
Hyperbole. Exaggeration; is increased or decreased over that of which we speak.
Rhetorical Question. Question that is not intended to express doubt or request response; express indirectly a statement or gives more force to what was said.
Prosopopoeia. Attribution of actions and qualities of animate beings to inanimate objects or abstract, is considered personification if attributable to irrational aspect of humanity:
Snow sifted nail, claw demolished. (Miguel Hernández).
Portrait. Description of physical and moral qualities of someone. If the only physical description, is called prosopography, and if it is only moral, etopeya.