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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 speech constitute the latter.
In editorial practice, a trope is "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase". [2] Semantic change has expanded the definition of the literary term trope to also describe a writer's usage of commonly recurring or overused literary techniques and rhetorical devices (characters and situations), [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] motifs ...
Tricolon – the pattern of three phrases in parallel, found commonly in Western writing after Cicero—for example, the kitten had white fur, blue eyes, and a pink tongue. Trivium – grammar, rhetoric, and logic taught in schools during the medieval period. Tropes – a figure of speech that uses a word aside from its literal meaning.
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Synecdoche is a rhetorical trope and a kind of metonymy—a figure of speech using a term to denote one thing to refer to a related thing. [9] [10]Synecdoche (and thus metonymy) is distinct from metaphor, [11] although in the past, it was considered a sub-species of metaphor, intending metaphor as a type of conceptual substitution (as Quintilian does in Institutio oratoria Book VIII).
Authors writing their texts consider not only a word's denotation but also its connotation. For example, a person may be described as stubborn or tenacious, both of which have the same basic meaning but are opposite in terms of their emotional background (the first is an insult, while the second is a compliment).
In practice, signifyin' often takes the form of quoting from sub-cultural vernacular, while extending the meaning at the same time through a rhetorical figure. The expression itself derives from the numerous tales about the signifying monkey, a folk trickster figure said to have originated during slavery in the United States. In most of these ...
In rhetoric, a scheme is a type of figure of speech that relies on the structure of the sentence, unlike the trope, which plays with the meanings of words. [ 1 ] A single phrase may involve both a trope and a scheme, e.g., may use both alliteration and allegory .