Figures of Speech

An indirect or passing reference to an event, person, place or artistic work that the author assumes the reader will understand.

An event, object, custom, person or thing that is out of its natural order of time.

A comparison of similar things, often to explain something unfamiliar with something familiar

A terse statement of a principal or truth; a maxim

A rhetorical device in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an inanimate object or abstraction

Any expression that has been used so often it has lost its freshness

Any terse, witty, pointed saying that has a punch-line or satirical twist

The substitution of a mild term for one more offensive or hurtful

Language that contains figures of speech, such as metaphor, simile, personification, etc.

Exaggeration for the sak of emphasis in a figure of speech not meant literally. "I've been waiting here for ages."

A metaphoric compound word or phrase used as a synonym for a common noun

A figure of speech by which an affirmation is made indirectly by saying its opposite, usually with an effect of understatement

The comic substitution of one word for another similar in sound, but quite different in meaning

The most important and widespread figure of speech in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.

An idea sustained throughout the work