Get to know about top 20 figures of speech

2.  The repetition of an
initial consonant sound.

3.  The Repetition of the same word or phrase at
the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
(Contrast with epiphora and epistrophe.)
 Example – “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.
 By Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My
lovely,1940.

4.  The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in
balanced phrases.
 Example – “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a
real thing”
 By Goethe

5.  Breaking off discourse to address
some absent person or thing, some
abstract quality, an inanimate object,
or a nonexistent character.

6.  Identity or similarity in sound between
internal vowel in neighbouring words.
 Example – “ If I bleat when I speak it‟s
because I just got….fleeced.”
 By Al Swearengen in Deadwood, 2004

7.  A verbal pattern in which the second half
of an expression is balanced against the
first but with the parts reversed.
 Example- “Nice to see you, to see
you, nice!”

8.  The substitution of an inoffensive
term for one considered offensively
explict.
 Example – Paul Kersey : You‟ve got
a prime figure. You really have, you
know.
 That‟s a euphenism for fat.

9.  An extravagant statement; the use of
exaggerated terms for the purpose of
emphasis or heightened effect.

10.  The use of words to convey the opposite of their
literary meaning. A statement or stuation where
the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or
presentation of the idea.
 Example –
 Women: I started riding these train in the forties. Those
days a man would give up his seat for a woman. Now we‟re
liberated and we have to stand.
 Elaine – It‟s ironic.
 Woman: What‟s ironic?
 Elaine – This, that we‟ve come all this way, we have made
all this progress, but you know we‟ve lost the little things,
the niceties.

11.  A figure of speech consisting of an
understatement in which an
affirmative is expressed by negating
its opposite.

12.  An implied comparison between two unlike
things that actually have something important
in common.
 Example – “ A man may break a word with
you sir, and words are but wind.”
 By William Shakespeare, from „The Comedy of
Errors.‟

13.  A figure of speech in which one word or
phrase is substituted for another with
which it is closely associated; also, the
rhetorical strategy of describing
something indirectly by referring to
things around it.

14.  The use of words that imitate the sounds
associated with the objects or actions they refer
to.
 Example – “Chug, chug, chug, puff, puff.
 Ding-dong, ding-dong. The little rain rumbled
over the tracks.

15.  A figure of speech in which incongruous or
contradictory terms appear side by side.
 Examples – act naturally, random
order, original copy, conspicuous
absence, found missing, alone together
, criminal justice, old news, peace force, even
odds, awful good, student teacher, deafening
silence, definite possibility, definite
maybe, terribly pleased, ill health, turn up
missing, jumbo shrimp, loose tights, small
crowd, and clearly misunderstood.

16.  A figure of speech in which an inanimate object
or abstraction is endowed with human
qualities or abilities.
 Example-
The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled
on his fingers and kicked the withered leaves
about and thumped the branches with his
hand. And he said he‟d kill and kill and kill,
and so he will, so he will. By James
Stephen(The Wind).

17.  A statement that appears to contradict itself.
 Examples – “ War is Peace.”, “Freedom is
slavery.” , “ Ignorance is strength.”
 By George Orwell, (1984)

18.  A play on words, sometimes on different
senses of the same word and sometimes on the
similar sense or sound of different words.
 Example – A vulture boards a plane, carrying a
two dead possums. The attendant looks at him
and says, “I‟m sorry, sir, only one carrion
allowed per passenger.”

19.  A stated comparison ( usually formed with
“like” or “as”) between two fundamentally
dissimilar things that have certain qualities in
common.
 Example – “Good coffee is like friendship: rich
and warm and strong.”
 (slogan of Pan-American coffee bureau)

20.  A figure of speech in which a part is used to
represent the whole (for example, ABCs for
alphabet) or the whole for a part(“ England
won the World Cup in 1966.”)
 Example – “The sputtering economy could
make a difference if you‟re trying to get a deal
on a new set of wheels.”

21.  A figure of speech in which a writer or a
speaker deliberately makes a situation seem
less important or serious than it is.
 Example – The grave‟s a fine and a private
place, but none, I think, do there embrace.”
 By Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”