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Using several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted.
"[I]t is respectable to have no illusions--and safe--and profitable--and dull." |
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The omission or absence of conjunctions between different parts of a sentence.
"Joona walks through the Christmas market in Bollnäs Square. Fires are burning, horses are snorting, chestnuts are roasting. Children race through a stone maze, others drink hot chocolate." |
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A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed.
"You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget." |
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A rhetorical term for the contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses.
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." |
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A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses.
"The big sycamore by the creek was gone. The willow tangle was gone. The little enclave of untrodden bluegrass was gone. The clump of dogwood on the little rise across the creek--now that, too, was gone." |
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A rhetorical term for a series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses.
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." |
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Definition
A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." |
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Definition
A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected. The answer may be obvious or immediately provided by the questioner.
"Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?" |
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Definition
Broadly, the repetition of consonant sounds; more specifically, the repetition of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words.
"The repetition of final consonant sounds, as in 'First and last,' 'odds and ends,' 'short and sweet,' 'a stroke of luck,' or Shakespeare's 'struts and frets' is" |
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Definition
A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or as.
"When he lifted me up in his arms I felt I had left all my troubles on the floor beneath me like gigantic concrete shoes." |
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Definition
A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, or event--real or fictional.
"Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." |
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Definition
Vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the senses.
"At the next table a woman stuck her nose in a novel" |
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Definition
A figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common.
"I can mingle with the stars, and throw a party on Mars;
I am a prisoner locked up behind Xanax bars." |
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