FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Apostrophe - Someone absent or
Figures of Speech
1. Simile -Comparison of two things
essentially unlike using like, as, than,
similar to, seems, etc.
 His friend is as black as coal.
 He has learned gymnastics, and
is as agile as a monkey.
 When attacked in his home, he
will fight like a caged tiger.
 Can you dance like a monkey?
 Even when he was told
everything, he was acting like a
donkey.
2. Metaphor - Implicit comparison is
made between two things essentially
unlike.
 My friend is a Shakespeare
when in English class.
 He was a roaring lion in anger,
though now he is silent.
 Kisses are roses in the spring.
 This world is a sea of
anonymous faces.
3. Personification - Human attributes
are given to an animal, object, or a
concept.
 The flood raged over the entire
village.
 The flowers danced in the
gentle breeze.
 Time and tide wait for none.
 The fire swallowed the entire
forest.
4.
dead or something non-human is
addressed as it were alive and present
and could respond.
 “Ugh, cell phone, why won’t you
load my messages?”
 “Oh, Starbucks, how I love you!
Your medium dark roast allowed
me to survive that meeting!”
 “Oh what a world it seems we live
in.”
 “O holy night! The stars are
brightly shining!” (Christmas carol)
5. Paradox - A statement containing
apparently contradictory or
incompatible elements.
 Sharply blunt razor cannot do
anything to you.
 Kindly cruel treatment made
him flabbergasted.
 Creatively dull person cannot do
anything in his life.
6. Irony - Always implies some sort of
discrepancy between what is said and
what is meant.
 “Oh great! Now you have broken
my new camera.”
 I posted a video on YouTube
about how useless it is.
 The name of Britain’s biggest
dog was “Tiny.”
 The student was given ‘excellent’
on getting zero in the exam.
 7. Allusion - A reference to
something in previous literature or
history to broaden the context and
deepen the meaning.
 Don’t act like a Romeo in front of
her.
 This place is like a Garden of
Eden
 Hey! Guess who the new
Newton of our school is
8. Hyperbole - Exaggeration is used for
the purpose of emphasis and in the
service of truth.
 My grandmother is as old as the
hills.
 Your suitcase weighs a ton!
 He saw his childhood friend after
ages.
 I am trying to solve a million
issues these days.
9. Understatement - Deliberate
undervaluing of a thing and mutes the
expression of an emotion, idea or
situation.
11. Oxymoron - Two opposite or
contrasting words are jammed or put
together.
 Open secret
 Tragic comedy
 Seriously funny
 Awfully pretty
 Foolish wisdom
12. Synecdoche - A part is used for the
whole.
 He is looking at his own grey
hair and his agility.
 “boots” usually refers to soldiers.
 The new generation is addicted
to the use of plastic money.
13. Antithesis - There is a marked
contrast in words or clauses in order to
emphasize both parts of the contrast.
 Man proposes, God disposes.
 Love is an ideal thing, marriage a
real thing.

It was O.K.” – Said by the student who

got the highest score on the test.

10. Metonymy - The name of an object

is replaced by another which is closely
associated with it.

 The Hollywood is a home of

English movies.
 Buckingham Palace is world’s
oldest symbol of democracy.
 Washington – U.S Government
SOUND- EFFECT DEVICES
14. Repetition - The repetition of
sounds, syllables, words, syntactic
elements, lines, stanzaic forms, and
metrical patterns.
 If you think you can do it, you
can do it.
19. Consonance - The repetition of
internal consonant sounds.
 The ship has sailed to the far
off sh
20. Assonance - The rhyming of a word
with another in one or more of their
accented vowels.

15. Rhyme - A correspondence of Called vowel rhyme.

sound in the final accented vowels and
all that follows of two or more words.  Go and mow the lawn.

 One for the master, one for the 21. Cacophony - The discordant
dame, sounds in the jarring juxtaposition which
 And one for the little boy who are grating to the ear but sometimes
lives down the lane.” deliberately used for effect.

16. Rhythm - The regular or “I detest war because cause of war is

progressive pattern of recurrent accents always trivial
in the flow of a poem as determined by
the rise and fall of stress. 22. Euphemism - indirect expressions
that replace words and phrases
17. Onomatopoeia- The formation or considered harsh and impolite, or which
use of words whose sound is suggestive suggest something unpleasant.
of its meaning whether by imitation or
through cultural inference.  He is a little tipsy (drunk).
 We do not hire mentally
 The buzzing bee flew away. challenged (stupid) people.
 The sack fell into the river with  He is a special child (disabled or
a splash. learning challenged).
 The books fell on the table with a
loud thump.
 He looked at the roaring
 The rustling leaves kept me
awake.

18. Alliteration - Also called head

rhyme or initial rhyme. The repetition of
the initial consonant sounds at short
intervals.

 But a better butter makes a batter

better.
 A big bully beats a baby boy.