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A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). [1] [2] In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of
A simile (/ ˈ s ɪ m əl i /) is a type of figure of speech that directly compares two things. [1] [2] Similes are often contrasted with metaphors, where similes necessarily compare two things using words such as "like", "as", while metaphors often create an implicit comparison (i.e. saying something "is" something else).
The repetition of identical or similar sounds, usually accented vowel sounds and succeeding consonant sounds at the end of words, and often at the ends of lines of prose or poetry. [7] For example, in the following lines from a poem by A. E. Housman, the last words of both lines rhyme with each other. Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Uses of figurative language, or figures of speech, can take multiple forms, such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and many others. [10] Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature says that figurative language can be classified in five categories: resemblance or relationship, emphasis or understatement, figures of sound, verbal games, and errors.
Metonymy and related figures of speech are common in everyday speech and writing. Synecdoche and metalepsis are considered specific types of metonymy. Polysemy, the capacity for a word or phrase to have multiple meanings, sometimes results from relations of metonymy. Both metonymy and metaphor involve the substitution of one term for another. [6]
Accumulatio – the emphasis or summary of previously made points or inferences by excessive praise or accusation.; Actio – canon #5 in Cicero's list of rhetorical canons; traditionally linked to oral rhetoric, referring to how a speech is given (including tone of voice and nonverbal gestures, among others).
Quintilian saw rhetoric as the science of the possible deviation from a given norm, or from a pre-existing text taken as a model. Each variation can be seen as a figure (figures of speech or figures of thought). [4] From this perspective, Quintilian famously formulated four fundamental operations according to the analysis of any such variation.
In rhetoric, zeugma (/ ˈ zj uː ɡ m ə / ⓘ; from the Ancient Greek ζεῦγμα, zeûgma, lit. "a yoking together" [1]) and syllepsis (/ s ɪ ˈ l ɛ p s ɪ s /; from the Ancient Greek σύλληψις, sullēpsis, lit. "a taking together" [2]) are figures of speech in which a single phrase or word joins different parts of a sentence. [3]