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.