Nicole Anne D.
Viñas CREATIVE WRITING
11 HUMSS F
A figure of speech is a word or phrase that possesses a separate meaning
from its literal definition. It can be a metaphor or simile, designed to make a
comparison. It can be the repetition of alliteration or the exaggeration of
hyperbole to provide a dramatic effect.
1. Alliteration - The repetition of an initial consonant sound.
Go and gather the green leaves on the grass.
Please put away your paints and practice the piano.
Round and round she ran until she realized she was running round and
round.
I had to hurry home where grandma was waiting for her waffles.
The boy buzzed around as busy as a bee.
Garry grumpily gathered the garbage.
2. Anaphora - The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of
successive clauses or verses. (Contrast with epiphora and epistrophe.)
Every day, every night, in every way, I am getting better and better.”
“My life is my purpose. My life is my goal. My life is my inspiration.”
“Buying diapers for the baby, feeding the baby, playing with the baby: This
is what your life is when you have a baby.”
“I want my money right now, right here, all right?”
“The wrong person was selected for the wrong job, at the wrong time, for
the wrong purpose.”
3. Antithesis - The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Man proposes, God disposes.
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.
Speech is silver, but silence is gold.
Patience is bitter, but it has a sweet fruit.
4. Chiasmus - A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is
balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.
“It is not the oath that makes us believe the man,
but the man the oath.”
“Love as if you would one day hate,
and hate as if you would one day love.”
“Bad men live that they may eat and drink,
whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”
“But O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves.”
“His time a moment, and a point his space.”
5. Euphemism - The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered
offensively explicit.
Passed away instead of died.
Dearly departed instead of died.
Ethnic cleansing instead of genocide.
Negative patient outcome instead of died.
Collateral damage instead of accidental deaths.
6. Hyperbole - An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the
purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.
That man is as tall as a house.
This is the worst day of my life.
The shopping cost me a million dollars.
My dad will kill me when he comes home.
Your skin is softer than silk.
7. Irony - The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A
statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or
presentation of the idea.
A fire station burns down.
A marriage counselor files for divorce.
The police station gets robbed.
A post on Facebook complaining how useless Facebook is.
A traffic cop gets his license suspended because of unpaid parking tickets.
8. Litotes - A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an
affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.
They aren't unhappy with the presentation.
Not too shabby!
The two concepts are not unlike each other.
She's no spring chicken.
It's not exactly a walk in the park.
9. Metaphor - An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have
something important in common.
My teacher is a dragon.
Mary's eyes were fireflies.
The computers at school are old dinosaurs.
He is a night owl.
Maria is a chicken.
10. Metonymy- A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for
another with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of
describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.
Hollywood has been releasing a surprising amount of sci-fi movies lately.
The kitchen is coming along nicely
Do you want a piece of my Danish?
What would I do without your smart mouth?
I love all of you.
11. Onomatopoeia - The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the
objects or actions they refer to.
Machine noises—honk, beep, vroom, clang, zap, boing
Animal names—cuckoo, whip-poor-will, whooping crane, chickadee
Impact sounds—boom, crash, whack, thump, bang
Sounds of the voice—shush, giggle, growl, whine, murmur, blurt, whisper,
hiss
Nature sounds—splash, drip, spray, whoosh, buzz, rustle
12. Oxymoron - A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms
appear side by side.
Seriously funny.
Awfully pretty.
Foolish wisdom.
Original copies.
Liquid gas.
13. Paradox - A statement that appears to contradict itself.
Your enemy's friend is your enemy.
I am nobody.
“What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.” – George Bernard
Shaw.
Wise fool.
Truth is honey, which is bitter.
14. Personification - A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction
is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
Lightning danced across the sky.
The wind howled in the night.
The car complained as the key was roughly turned in its ignition.
Rita heard the last piece of pie calling her name.
My alarm clock yells at me to get out of bed every morning.
15. Pun - A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and
sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.
Santa Claus' helpers are known as subordinate Clauses.
She had a photographic memory but never developed it.
The two pianists had a good marriage. They always were in a chord.
I was struggling to figure out how lightning works, but then it struck me.
The grammarian was very logical. He had a lot of comma sense.
16. Simile - A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two
fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.
He is as funny as a barrel of monkeys.
This house is as clean as a whistle.
He is as strong as an ox.
Your explanation is as clear as mud.
Watching the show was like watching grass grow.
17. Synecdoche - A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole
(for example, ABCs for alphabet) or the whole for a part ("England won the World
Cup in 1966").
Boots on the ground—refers to soldiers.
New wheels—refers to a new car.
Ask for her hand—refers to asking a woman to marry.
Suits—can refer to businesspeople.
Plastic—can refer to credit cards.
18. Understatement - A figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately
makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.
“Deserts are sometimes hot, dry, and sandy.” – Describing deserts of the
world.
“He is not too thin.” – Describing an obese person.
“It rained a bit more than usual.” – Describing an area being flooded by heavy
rainfall.
“It was O.K.” – Said by the student who got the highest score on the test.
“It is a bit nippy today.” – Describing the temperature, which is 5 degrees
below freezing.
19. Apostrophe - Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing,
some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
Then come, sweet death, and rid me of this grief. (Queen Isabel in Edward II
by Christopher Marlowe)
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth. (Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene I)
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll! (The Ocean by Lord Byron)
Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of
experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of
my race. (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce)
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)
20. Assonance - Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in
neighboring words.
"Hear the mellow wedding bells" by Edgar Allen Poe
"Try to light the fire"
"I lie down by the side fo my bride"/"Fleet feet sweep by sleeping
geese"/"Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dark fox gone to
ground" by Pink Floyd
"It's hot and it's monotonous." by Sondheim
"The crumbling thunder of seas"
