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Climax – an arrangement of phrases or topics in increasing order, as with good, better, best. Colon – a rhetorical figure consisting of a clause that is grammatically, but not logically, complete. Colloquialism – a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.
An adage expresses a well-known and simple truth in a few words. [8] (Similar to aphorism and proverb.) adjective Any word or phrase which modifies a noun or pronoun, grammatically added to describe, identify, or quantify the related noun or pronoun. [9] [10] adverb A descriptive word used to modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb.
An autological word (or homological word) [1] expresses a property that it also possesses. For example, the word "word" is a word, the word "English" is (in) English, the word "writable" is writable, and the word "pentasyllabic" has five syllables. The opposite, a heterological word, does not apply to itself.
For example, the English word "English" is autological, as are "unhyphenated" and "pentasyllabic". An adjective is heterological if it does not describe itself. Hence "long" is a heterological word (because it is not a long word), as are "hyphenated" (because it has no hyphen) and "monosyllabic" (because it has more than one syllable).
Pleonasm can serve as a redundancy check; if a word is unknown, misunderstood, misheard, or if the medium of communication is poor—a static-filled radio transmission or sloppy handwriting—pleonastic phrases can help ensure that the meaning is communicated even if some of the words are lost.
An idiom is an expression that has a figurative meaning often related, but different from the literal meaning of the phrase. Example: You should keep your eye out for him. A pun is an expression intended for a humorous or rhetorical effect by exploiting different meanings of words. Example: I wondered why the ball was getting bigger. Then it ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 14 January 2025. This is a list of onomatopoeias, i.e. words that imitate, resemble, or suggest the source of the sound that they describe. For more information, see the linked articles. Human vocal sounds Achoo, Atishoo, the sound of a sneeze Ahem, a sound made to clear the throat or to draw attention ...
Syncope: omission of parts of a word or phrase. Symploce: simultaneous use of anaphora and epistrophe: the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning and the end of successive clauses. Synchysis: words that are intentionally scattered to create perplexment. Synecdoche: referring to a part by its whole or vice versa.