Common Figures Of Speech

Sometimes, you need special effects in a movie in order to make it more interesting. Similarly, writers add special effects to what they write. These special effects are called rhetoric or figures of speech. A figure of speech is a phrase that or a way of saying something that enhances the idea of what is being told. These enhancements can be done in a variety of ways - repetition, sarcastic way of saying, shocking way of saying, referring to inanimate objects as living beings, roundabout way of saying things and what not.

Figure of Speech Examples

Here are the common figures of speech that are included in University syllabus. Generally people think that mainly there are 8 kinds of figures of speech. However there are hundreds of figures of speech in the English literature.

Here are The Top 20 Figures Of Speech ( Along With Bonus 10 Figures Of Speech)

Figure Of Speech	Short Description	Examples
Anti Climax	Sudden fall from serious to ludicrous	1.Poets and pigs are not appreciated until they die. 2.She lost her husband, her child, her purse and her pocket handkerchief.
Antithesis	Placing of contrasted words against each other	1.Man proposes, God disposes. 2.He is willing to wound, yet afraid to strike.
Apostrophe	A passionate address to a person dead or absent or to a non-living abstract thing. (Look for the exclamation mark along with this)	1.Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour. 2.O shame! Where is thy blush? 3. England! With all thy faults I love thee still.
Asyndeton	Leaving out the usual conjunctions connecting the different words or parts of a senetence.	1.He smiled, shook hands, parted. 2. I seal, I cancel, I do what I like
Anaphora	Repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of several successive clause or sentences.	1. The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around. 2.It is the cause, it is the cause my soul!/ Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
Allusion	Referring briefly or explicitly to a person or place or event of the past or to another literary work or passage.	Hence loathed melancholy/ Of Cereberus and blackest midnight born.
Climax	Ascending order of emotion	1.He came, he saw, he conquered 2.To strive, to seek, and not to yield.
Chiasmus/ Inversion	a+b becomes b+a	1. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. 2. Fair is foul and foul is fair.
Epigram	A contradiction is shown to shock us, but when we read again it shows a deeper meaning	1. In the midst of life we are in death. 2.If you have nothing to say, say it
Euphemism	Describing something unpleasant in a pleasant manner	1. But Banquo is safe. 2. He is now resting eternally. (Means he is dead)
Exclamation	Sudden expression of an emotion or feeling. Begins with what, how etc (Dont confuse this with Apostrophe)	1. But she is in her grave and oh/ The difference to me! 2. How sweet a thing is to wear a crown!
Hypallage/ Transfered Epithet	Using an adjective before a noun to which it does not properly belong.	1. Marif tossed and turned in that sleepless night. ( Whos is sleepless, Marif or the night?)
Hyperbole	An exaggerated statement	1. Marif’s girlfriend is the fairest of all women. 2. Thousands I saw at a glance.
Hendiadys	We break and delete a modifier used to modify a noun and instead use two nouns to express a complex idea	With joy and song (instead of joyful song), I clear my way.
Hyperbaton	To put emphasis, grammatical order is inverted.	1. out of despair comes hope. 2. Never saw I, never felt a calm so deep
Irony	To say one thing to mean the opposite. (Dont confuse this with innuendo or sarcasm)	1. Brutus is an honourable man 2. A very fine friend you were to forsake me in my trouble
Innuendo	An indirect way of expressing something derogatory. (Dont confuse this with euphemism)	1. He is poor but he is honest. (Indicates that poor people are not honest) 2. My friend came and my book was missing.
Interrogation	Look for question mark and see if the question already suggests an answer	1. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? 2. If you slap Marif, wont he slap you back?
Metaphor	An implicit comparision between two objects that are not similar. (Dont confuse this with similie)	1. He cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of a rule. 2. I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 3. He is in the sunset of his life.
Metonymy	Use of the name of one thing for that of another thing associated or suggested by the first thing – the thing that is used. (Yeah I know its confusing)	1. He is fond of reading Tennyson. (ie. The works of Tennyson) 2. The pen(Writer or book) is mightier than the sword( War or Force) 3.He was relieved of his crown ( kingship) 4. Rabindranath is the pride (passion of people) of India. 5. He is now the joke of the town. ( The laughing stock)
Synechdoche	Almost like Metonymy. The difference is the thing said and the thing meant are so intimately connected that one cannot be separated from the other.	1. Man cant live by bread alone( food) 2. I have many mouths to feed ( persons) 3. He is the Newton of our country. ( So sword can be separated from war, pen can also be separated from writer or book. But bread is food itself, it cant be separated from food. Similarly, mouth cant be separated from peoples’ face)
Simile	An Explicit comparision.	1. Rose as she. 2. Marif’s girlfriend is like Penelope Cruz.
Oxymoron	Two opposite words, terms or ideas are put side by side.	1. Thunderous silence 2. White lie 3.Kind cruelty
Onomatopoeia	Suggesting some activity with words that imitate the sound of that activity	1. Rustling 2. Clang 3. Creak 4. Murmuring
Personification	Some abstract thing or some non living thing is traeted as living thing	1. India is proud of her sons. 2. Death lay his icy hands on kings
Periphrasis	Describing a thing or an idea in a round about way for the sake of poetry, to avoid technical terms or to create comic effect.	1. Sleep the sleep that knows no breaking (DEATH) 2. The shining leather that encases the limb. ( Boot)
Polysyndeton	Exact opposite of asyndeton. Using conjunctions like a mad man.	1. It cracked and growled and roared and howled
Pun/ Paronomasia	Playing upon words	1. If life worth living? It depends upon the liver. ( Liver is two things here- 1. Who lives that is the person himself, 2. The organ liver)
Sarcasm	Unlike Irony we use sarcasm to directly say something bad about someone or something. Nothing hidden.	1. His bark is worse than his bite.
Tautology	In grammar, a tautology (from Greek tauto, "the same" and logos, "word"/"idea") is a statement that is tautological, or an unnecessary repetition of meaning, using more than one word effectively to say the same thing	1.The teacher assisted me by helping me to complete the math problem.