FIGURES OF SPEECH AND LITERARY DEVICES

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)”.
• 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
Apostrophe is commonly applied in fiction, music, poetry and prose. In this scenario, a
character is seen or imagined alone (solo) and thinking his/her thoughts out loud.
Typically, the character detaches himself/herself from the reality and speak to the
inanimate or imaginary character in his/her speech.
#O holy night! The stars are brightly shining! (Adolphe Adam)
#O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth. (Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene I)
#O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her!
How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings, and you would not have it! (The Holy Bible, Luke 13:34)
6. HYPERBOLE
Hyperbole is a statement made emphatic by overstatement. For example, “Virtues as the
sands of the shore.”
• My dad will kill me when he comes home.
• Your skin is softer than silk.
• She’s as skinny as a toothpick.
• She was so happy; her smile was a mile wide.
• I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.
• It’s impossible to complete this puzzle.
• Next Friday is never going to arrive.
• I’ve read this book a hundred times.
• My hand hurts so much it’s going to drop off.
• My brother is stronger than iron.
• She’s my guardian angel.
• Your brain is the size of a pea.
7. SYNECDOCHE
Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which, most often, a part of something is used to
refer to its whole. For example, "The captain commands one hundred sails" is a
synecdoche that uses "sails" to refer to ships—ships being the thing of which a sail is a
part. A less common form of synecdoche occurs when a whole is used to refer to a part.
An example of this is when the word "mortals" is used to mean humans—"mortals"
technically includes all animals and plants (anything that dies), so using "mortals" to
mean humans is a synecdoche that uses a category to stand in for one of its subsets.
• "Nice wheels!" A synecdoche in which "wheels" stand in for the car that they are
a part of.
• "Hurry up, gray beard!" A not very polite synecdoche, in which an old man's
"gray beard" stands in for his whole being.
• "What's the head count?" The person asking this question is interested not just in
the number of heads, but rather in the number of people to whom the heads
belong.
8. TRANSFERRED EPITHETS
A transferred epithet is a little known—but often used—figure of speech in which a
modifier (usually an adjective) qualifies a noun other than the person or thing it is
actually describing. In other words, the modifier or epithet is transferred from the noun
it is meant to describe to another noun in the sentence.
For example, “sleepless night”, “sunburn mirth”, and “melodious plain”.
9. IRONY
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.
Irony can be challenging to identify, but it’s all about expectation:
• Example of verbal irony: Verbal irony would occur if a character walked out into
a horrible blizzard and said, “What nice weather we’re having!”
• Example of situational irony: If a police officer were conducting a gun safety
course and accidentally shot himself in the foot during the class, that would be
situational irony.
10. PUN
A pun is a joke based on the interplay of homophones — words with the same
pronunciation but different meanings. It can also play with words that sound similar, but
not exactly the same. The joke’s humor (if any) comes from the confusion of the two
meanings.
• The tallest building in town is the library — it has thousands of stories!
A pun on the difference between stories in books and stories (floors) in a building.
• Why do amphibians take the bus? Because their cars are always getting toad.
“Toad” vs. “towed”
• I dropped an electron somewhere! -Are you sure! -Yes, I’m positive!
A slightly brainier sort of pun. Losing an electron (a negatively charged particle) would
turn a neutral atom into a positively charged one. The pun works on the difference
between a positive charge and being “positive,” or certain.
11. 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.
12. ANTITHESIS
Antithesis is an effective literary and rhetorical device, as it pairs exact opposite or contrasting
ideas by utilizing parallel grammatical structure. This helps readers and audience members
define concepts through contrast and develop understanding of something through defining its
opposite.
For example,
• To err is human, to forgive divine.
• Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
• Spicy food is heaven on the tongue but hell in the tummy.

13. 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)
14. 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.
15. EXCLAMATION
It is used for strong expression of feelings.
For examples,
• lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud I fall upon the thorns of life; I bleed!
• Oh my God! What a brilliant catch!
• How sad it is to cry alone!
16. 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!”
17. 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
18. ONOMATOPOEIA
The formation of a word whose sound is made to suggest or echo the sense as in
cuckoo, bang, growl, hiss..
Rend with the tremendous sound your ears asunder with guns, drum, trumpet,
blunderbuss, and thunder.
19. Consonance
When sounds of consonants are repeated in the same sentence it is known as
Consonance. These can refer to repetition of sounds in the middle or end of the words
as well.
Examples:
• Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter.
• Mike likes his new bike.
20. Repetition
When a word or a phrase is repeated in a sentence for dramatic effect, it is known as
Repetition. Note words can be repeated anywhere in the sentence and not necessarily
immediately after each other.
Examples:
• I could go on and on about my children.
• I have to go miles and miles before I reach anywhere near the next town.
21. Assonance
Assonance is a figure of speech in which the same vowel sound repeats within a group
of words.
Some additional key details about assonance:
Assonance occurs when sounds, not letters, repeat. In the example above, the "oo"
sound is what matters, not the different letters used to produce that sound.
Assonance does not require that words with the same vowel sounds be directly next to
each other. Assonance occurs so long as identical vowel-sounds are relatively close
together.
Assonant vowel sounds can occur anywhere (at the beginning or end, on stressed or
unstressed syllables) within any of the words in the group.
Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds:
• I might like to take a flight to an island in the sky.
• The light of the fire is a sight.
• Go slow over the road.
22. Anaphora:
Anaphora is a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive
clauses, phrases, or sentences.
In every cry of every Man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear
23. Epiphora
Epiphora, also known as “epistrophe,” is a stylistic device in which a word or
a phrase is repeated at the ends of successive clauses.
• For no government is better than the men who compose it, and I want the best,
and we need the best, and we deserve the best. - John F. Kennedy
• And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the Earth. - Abraham Lincoln
• There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no
Northern problem. There is only an American problem. - Lyndon Johnson
24.Enjambment
Enjambment is a literary term denoting the continuation of a statement or phrase from
one line of poetry to the next. It comes from the French and means "to stride over." The
reader is taken easily and quickly—without interruption—to the following line of the
poem when an enjambed line lacks punctuation at its line break.
Example:
In Shakespeare's sonnet, four of the first eight lines are enjambed.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
That alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height is taken.
25.Iambic Pentameter
When we speak, our syllables are either stressed (stronger emphasis) or unstressed
(weaker emphasis). For example, the word "remark" consists of two syllables. "Re" is
the unstressed syllable, with a weaker emphasis, while "mark" is stressed, with a
stronger emphasis.
In poetry, a group of two or three syllables is referred to as a foot. A specific type of
foot is an iamb. A foot is an iamb if it consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable, so the word remark is an iamb.
Penta means five, so a line of iambic pentameter consists of five iambs – five sets of
unstressed and stressed syllables.
Twelfth Night (William Shakespeare)
If MU-sic BE the FOOD of LOVE, play ON;
Give ME ex-CESS of IT, that, SURF-ei-TING;
The AP-pe-TITE may SICK-en, AND so DIE.
In Oxford there once lived a rich old lout
Who had some guest rooms that he rented out,
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Miller’s Tale
Personification
Personification is a figure of speech that attributes human nature or human qualities to
abstract or inanimate objects. For example, we often use the phrases like the howling
wind, dancing leaves, time flies etc. Some examples of personification in a sentence
are:
The opportunity knocked at his door
The plants in her house silently begged to be watered
Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that is used for implying a comparison between two
things that have something in common but are in general different from each other.
Some examples of the usage of metaphors in a sentence is as follows:
It is raining cats and dogs
He is the star of our class
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that compares two things that are different from each
other but have similar qualities. These are generally formed through the usage of the
words ‘as’ or ‘like’. Some examples of similes in a sentence include:
He is as brave as a lion
Her expression was as cold as ice
Alliteration
Alliteration is a type of figure of speech in which a sentence consists of a series of
words that have the same consonant sound at the beginning. Some popular examples of
alliteration in a sentence include:
She sells sea shells on the sea shore
A good cook could cook as much cookies as a good cook who could cook cookies
Onomatopoeia
This a figure of speech which is used to express a sound. To be more precise, it involves
the use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the action or object referred to
i.e. hiss, clap etc. Some examples of onomatopoeia include:
The buzzing bee flew over my head
The stone hit the water with a splash
Hyperbole
A hyperbole is a figure of speech that consists of an exaggeration. It is the usage of
exaggerated terms in order to emphasise or heighten the effect of something. Some
examples of using hyperboles in a sentence include:
I have told you a million times to not touch my stuff!
She has got a pea-sized brain
Euphemism
Euphemism is the usage of a mild word in substitution of something that is more
explicit or harsh when referring to something unfavourable or unpleasant. Some
examples of the usage of this figure of speech include:
This mall has good facilities for differently-abled people
He passed away in his sleep
Irony
Irony or sarcasm is a figure of speech in which the usage of words conveys the opposite
of their literal meaning. These are often used in a humorous manner. Some examples of
irony include:
Your hands are as clean as mud
The dinner you served was as hot as ice
Anaphora
It is a repetition of a word or phrase at the start of several sentences of clauses. Some of
the examples of anaphora figures of speech are as follows:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “I Have a Dream” Speech
Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities
Apostrophe
It addresses the subject that is not present in the work. In this case, the object is absent
or inanimate. Here are some of the examples of apostrophes.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are
Welcome, O life!
Figures of Speech with Examples
Figures of Speech Examples
Personification The opportunity knocked at his door
Metaphor It is raining cats and dogs
Simile He is as brave as a lion
Alliteration She sells seashells on the seashore
Onomatopoeia The buzzing bee flew over my head
Hyperbole She has got a pea-sized brain
Euphemism He passed away in his sleep
Irony Your hands are as clean as mud
Anaphora Dr Martin Luther King Jr: “I Have a Dream” Speech
Apostrophe Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are