Alliteration The repetition of an initial consonant sound. "You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife.

" Anaphora The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses. (Contrast with epiphora and epistrophe.) "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." Antithesis The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases. "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." Apostrophe Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character. "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art" Assonance Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words. "The spider skins lie on their sides, translucent and ragged, their legs drying in knots." Chiasmus A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed. "You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget." Euphemism The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit. Mr. Prince: We'll see you when you get back from image enhancement camp. Martin Prince: Spare me your euphemisms! It's fat camp, for Daddy's chubby little secret! Hyperbole An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect. "I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far."

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. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room." Litotes A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite. "[W]ith a vigorous and sudden snatch, I brought my assailant harmlessly, his full length, on the not over clean ground--for we were now in the cow yard." Metaphor An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common. "Life is a journey, travel it well." 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. "Detroit is still hard at work on an SUV that runs on rain forest trees and panda blood." Onomatopoeia The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." Personification A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

"The road isn't built that can make it breathe hard!"

Simile A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common. "He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. 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"). All hands on deck.