Tropes: not to be taken literally
| Name
|
Explanation
|
Example
|
| metaphor
|
|
|
| metonymy
|
|
|
| synekdoche
|
|
|
| metalepsis
|
|
|
| irony
|
|
|
| paradox
|
|
|
| oxymoron
|
|
|
| litotes
|
|
|
| hyperbole
|
|
|
Metaplastic figures: playing with spelling and sound
The addition of letters and sounds
| Name
|
Explanation
|
Example
|
| prosthesis
|
addition of letters to the beginning of a word
|
|
| epenthesis
|
addition of letters to the middle of a word
|
|
| paragoge
|
addition of letters to the end of a word
|
|
The omission of letters and sounds
| Name
|
Explanation
|
Example
|
| aphaersis
|
omission of letters to the beginning of a word
|
|
| syncope
|
omission of letters to the middle of a word
|
|
| apocope
|
omission of letters to the end of a word
|
|
The switching of letters and sounds
| Name
|
Explanation
|
Example
|
| antisthecon
|
substitution of a letter or sound for another within a word
|
|
| metathesis
|
transposition of a letter out of its normal order in a word
|
|
Combinations of these factors
synaeresis
Playing with the structure of sentences
Words (seem to) get lost
| Name
|
Explanation
|
Example
|
| ellipsis
|
omission of a word
|
|
| zeugma
|
an ellipsis of a verb, in which one verb is used to govern several clauses
|
|
| scesis onamaton
|
omission of the verb of a sentence
|
|
| anapodoton
|
omission of a clause
|
|
| aposiopesis
|
stopping a sentence in midcourse so that the statement is unfinished
|
|
| occupatio
|
The orator promises not to speak of a certain thing - and does it the more provocatively by doing so
|
|
Repetions of words
| Name
|
Explanation
|
Example
|
| epizeuxis
|
emphatic repetition of a word with no other words between
|
|
| polyptoton
|
repetition of the same word or root in different grammatical functions or forms
|
|
| antanaclasis
|
repetition of a word, but in two different meanings
|
|
| anaphora
|
repetition of a word at the beginning of a clause, line, or sentence
|
|
| epistrophe
|
repetition of a word at the end of a clause, line, or sentence
|
I'll have my bond!/ Speak not against my bond!/ I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.---The Merchant of Venice, 3.3.4
|
| symploce
|
repetition of both beginnings and endings
|
|
| epanalepsis
|
repetition of the beginning at the end
|
|
| anadiplosis
|
repetition of the end of a line or clause at the next beginning
|
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,/ Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain ---Sir Philip Sidney, Loving in Truth (1591)
|
| gradatio
|
|
|
| congeries
|
a heaping together and piling up of many words that have a similar meaning
|
|
| antimetabole
|
repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order; a chiasmus on the level of words (AB; BA)
|
|
| pleonasm
|
|
|
Figures of unusual word order
Peculiar thoughts
anthimeria
http://www.nipissingu.ca/faculty/williams/figofspe.htm#Figures%20of%20Repetition%20(clauses%20and%20ideas)
