Useful Terminology

Adjective A word or a phrase naming an attribute, added to

or grammatically related to a noun to modify it or
describe it.

Alliteration The repetition of a speech sound in a sequence of

words; the term is applied only to consonants and
when the recurrent sound occurs in a conspicuous
position at the beginning either of a word or of a
stressed syllable within a word.

Assonance The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds

– especially in stressed syllables – in a sequence of
nearby words.

Couplet A couplet is a pair of rhymed lines.

Enjambement / run-on lines

Epithet / transferred epithet

Hyperbole A bold overstatement, or the extravagant

exaggeration of fact or possibility; it may be used
for serious or ironic or comic effect.

Iambic metre

Metaphor In a metaphor, a word or expression which in

literal usage denotes one kind of thing or action is
applied to a distinctly different kind of thing or
action, without asserting a comparison.

Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia designates a word, or a combination

of words, whose sound seems to resemble closely
the sound it denotes: ‘hiss’, ‘buzz’, ‘rattle’, ‘bang’.

Oxymoron Oxymoron designates two terms that are in

ordinary usage contraries.

Pathetic Fallacy A phrase used to signify any description of

inanimate natural objects that ascribes to them
human capabilities, sensations and emotions.

Personification Personification is used when either an inanimate

object or an abstract concept is written about as
though it were endowed with life or human
attributes.
Rhetorical question A sentence in the grammatical form of a question
which is not asked to request information or to
invite a reply, but to achieve an expressive force
different from, and usually more effective than a
direct assertion.

Sibilance A letter or set of letters sounded with a hiss,

e.g.‘s’, sh.

Simile A comparison between two distinctly different things, indicated by the word
‘like’ or ‘as’.