Tenth Grade Terminology

Personification A figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human qualities. Example: In “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” Emily Dickinson personifies death by depicting it as a person who drives a carriage and makes stops for passengers.

Metaphor A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things which are basically dissimilar. Examples: “Life is a hard road.” “Life is a dream.”

Simile A figure of speech comparing two essentially unlike things through the use of a specific word of comparison. (like or as) Example: “. . . I had always felt the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it, was vibrantly real while I was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day I left . . .” (Knowles 1).

Onomatopoeia The use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its meaning. Examples: hiss, clang, rustle, snap

Alliteration The repetition of a similar sound, usually consonants, in a group of words. Example: “Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Allusion A specific reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects a reader to recognize. In Oliver Wendell Holmes’s “The Chambered Nautilus” he alludes to Homer’s Sirens when he states, “In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings. . .”

Irony A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is meant, or between what happens. Verbal irony: a writer or speaker says one thing but means another. Dramatic irony: a reader or audience member knows something that a character in a story or play does not know. Situational irony: a writer shows a discrepancy between the expected result of some action or situation and its actual result.

Oxymoron A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory ideas or terms. Examples: “sweet sorrow” “wise fool” “honest thief”

Paradox A statement that reveals a kind of truth, although it seems at first to be self-contradictory and untrue. Example: When you increase your knowledge, you see how little you know. You see how much you still have to learn. When you really know a lot, you can say: "I know that I know nothing." This is a paradox.

Epigram A short, witty statement in prose or verse. Example: “Nature fits all her children with something to do, He who would write and can’t write, can surely review.”

Epigraph A quotation or motto at the beginning of a chapter, book, short story, or poem that makes some point about the work.

Epithet A descriptive name or phrase used to characterize someone or something. Examples: “fair-weather friend” “Catherine the Great” “wine-dark sea”

Hyperbole A figure of speech using exaggeration or overstatement, for special effect. Example: Where the corn grows so tall they have to go up on a ladder to pick the ears off; and where a boy fell into the hole that his father had dug a beet out of, and they had to let down a bed cord to draw him up again. . .