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Allegory
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A symbolic narrative.
Example: A fable.
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Alliteration
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The commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter.
Example: She sells seashells by the seashore.
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Allusion
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A passing or casual reference.
Example: "Big guns upstairs." (Referencing God.)
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Ambiguity
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Doubtfulness or uncertainty of meaning or intention; more than one meaning.
Example: Articulate (one is a verb, the other is an adjective).
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Analogy
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Similarity or comparability.
Example: A simile.
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Antecedent
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A preceding circumstance, event, object, style, phenomenon, etc.
Example: An anticedent event.
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Antithesis
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The direct opposite.
Example: Her behaviour was the very antithesis of cowardly.
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Aphorism
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A terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation.
Example: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Apostrophe
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To indicate the omission of one or more letters in a word, whether unpronounced or pronounced.
Example: Gov't (government).
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Atmosphere
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The tone or theme of a peice of literary work.
Example: The author had cleverly atmosphered the novel for added chills.
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Caricature
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Any imitation or copy so distorted or inferior as to be ludicrous.
Example: The pictures that are drawn of you at theme parks.
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Chiasmus
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A reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases.
Example: He went to the country, to the town went she.
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Clause
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A syntactic construction containing a subject and predicate and forming part of a sentence or constituting a whole simple sentence.
Example: I love running.
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Colloquialism
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Involving or using conversation.
Example: "You want to go to the park?" "Sure!"
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Conceit
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An excessively favorable opinion of one's own ability, importance, wit, etc.
Example: A man that thinks he is extremely handsome.
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