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Figures of Speech

Figures of speech are deviations from ordinary language used to increase effectiveness. They include similes, metaphors, personification and other forms. Some common figures of speech are simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, apostrophe, hyperbole, synecdoche, transferred epithets, euphemism, irony/sarcasm, pun, epigram, antithesis, oxymoron, litotes, interrogation, exclamation, climax, anticlimax, alliteration, onomatopoeia, circumlocution, and tautology. Each uses creative or unusual word usage and construction to convey meaning or emphasis.

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120 views5 pages

Figures of Speech

Figures of speech are deviations from ordinary language used to increase effectiveness. They include similes, metaphors, personification and other forms. Some common figures of speech are simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, apostrophe, hyperbole, synecdoche, transferred epithets, euphemism, irony/sarcasm, pun, epigram, antithesis, oxymoron, litotes, interrogation, exclamation, climax, anticlimax, alliteration, onomatopoeia, circumlocution, and tautology. Each uses creative or unusual word usage and construction to convey meaning or emphasis.

Uploaded by

Helena Mendonça
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What are the figures of speech?

A figure of speech is a deviation from the ordinary use of words in


order to increase their effectiveness.

Basically, it is a figurative language that may consist of a single word


or phrase.

It may be a simile, a metaphor or personification to convey the


meaning other than the literal meaning.

Types of figures of Speech


The figures of speech list is over a hundred but some commonly used
types are given along with examples.

1. SIMILE
In simile two unlike things are explicitly compared. For example, “She
is like a fairy”. A simile is introduced by words such as like, so, as etc.

2. METAPHOR
It is an informal or implied simile in which words like, as, so are omitted.
For example, “He is like a lion (Simile) “and “He is a lion (metaphor)”.
In the following examples, metaphors are underlined.
•She is a star of our family.
•The childhood of the world; the anger of the tempest;
the deceitfulness of the riches: wine is a mocker.
•She is now in the sunset of her days.
•

3. PERSONIFICATION
Personification is an attribution of personal nature, intelligence or
character to inanimate objects or abstract notions. For example, in
some phrases we use, the furious storm, the thirsty ground, and the
pitiless cold. Some other examples are:

•Little sorrows sit and weep. (Boccaccio)


The dish ran away with the spoon. (Blake)
4. METONYMY
Metonymy is meant for a change of name. It is a substitute of the
thing names for the thing meant. Following examples will clarify the
concept.

•The pen is mightier than the sword.


•From the cradle to the grave. = from childhood to death.
•I have never read Milton. = the works of Milton.

5. APOSTROPHE
It is a direct address to some inanimate thing or some abstract idea
as if it were living person or some absent person as if it were present.
Example, “Boy’s mother loved him very much.”

6. HYPERBOLE
Hyperbole is a statement made emphatic by overstatement. For
example, “Virtues as the sands of the shore.”

7. SYNECDOCHE
Synecdoche is the understanding of one thing by means of another.
Here, a part is used to designate the whole or the whole to designate
a part. For example, “I have the Viceroy, love the man.”, and “All
hands (crew) at work.”
8. TRANSFERRED EPITHETS
In transferred epithets, the qualifying objective is transferred from a
person to a thing as in phrases. For example, “sleepless night”,
“sunburn mirth”, and “melodious plain”.

9. EUPHEMISM
By using the euphemism, we speak in agreeable and favorable terms
of some person, object or event which is ordinarily considered
unpleasant and disagreeable. For example,

•He is telling us a fairy tale. (a lie)


•He has fallen asleep. (he is dead)
10. IRONY OR SARCASM
In this mode of speech, the real meanings of the words used are
different from the intended meanings. For example, the child of
cobbler has no shoe.

11. PUN
This consists of a play on the various meanings of a word. Its effect is
often ludicrous. For example,

•Is life worth living? It depends upon the liver.


•Obviously, the constitution is against prostitution and congress is
against progress. (con means against and pro means for)

12. EPIGRAM
It is a brief pointed saying. It couples words which apparently
contradict each other. The language of the epigram is remarkable for
its brevity. Examples are as under:

•The child is the father of the man. (Wordsworth)


•Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
•The art lies in concealing art.
•Silence is sometimes more eloquent than words.
•Conspicuous by its absence.

13. ANTITHESIS
In antithesis, a striking opposition or contrast of words is made in the
same sentence in order to secure emphasis. For example,

•To err is human, to forgive divine.


•Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

14. OXYMORON
It is a figure of speech which combines two seemingly contradictory
or incongruous words for sharp emphasis or effect. For example,

•“darkness visible” (Milton);


•“make haste slowly” (Suetonius)
•“loving hate” (Romeo and Juliet)
15. LITOTES
It is the opposite of hyperbole. Here an affirmative is conveyed by
negation of the opposite. For example,

•He is no dullard.
•I am not a little
•He is not a bad sort.

16. INTERROGATION
This is a rhetorical mode of affirming or denying something more
strongly than could be done in ordinary language. Examples,

•Who is here so base that would be a bondman?


•Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman?
•Who is here so vile that will not love his country? (Shakespeare)

17. EXCLAMATION
It is used for strong expression of feelings. For examples, O lift me as
a wave, a leaf, a cloud I fall upon the thorns of life; I bleed!

18. CLIMAX
It is an arrangement of a series of ideas in the order of increasing
importance. For example, “What a piece of work man! How noble in
reason, how infinite in faculties! In action, how like an angel!”

19. ANTICLIMAX OR BATHOS


This is the opposite to climax and signifies a ludicrous descent from
the higher to the lower.

•A man so various, that he seemed to be. Not one, but all mankind’s
epitome; who in the course of one revolving moon; was lawyer,
statesman, fiddler, and buffoon.
20. ALLITERATION
The repetition of the same letter or syllable at the beginning of two or
more words is called alliteration. For example,

•By apt Alliteration’s artful a


•Glittering through the gloomy g
•The furrow follows f

21. ONOMATOPOEIA
The formation of a word whose sound is made to suggest or echo the
sense as in cuckoo, bang, growl, hiss.

•The moan of doves in immemorial elms and murmur of innumerable


bees.
•Rend with the tremendous sound your ears asunder with guns, drum,
trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder.

22. CIRCUMLOCUTION
This consists of expressing some fact or idea in a roundabout way,
instead of stating it at once. For example,

•The viewless couriers of the air. =(the wind)


•That statement of his was purely an effort of imagination. = (a fiction)

23. TAUTOLOGY OR PLEONASM


Tautology is meant for repeating the same fact or idea in different
words. For example, “It is the privilege and birthright of every man to
express his ideas without any fear.”

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