Rhetorical Devices
Alliteration Antithesis Climax Epizeuxis Metanoia Polysyndeton
Allusion Apophasis Conduplicatio Eponym Metaphor Procatalepsis
Amplification Aporia Diacope Exemplum Metonymy Rhetorical Question
Anacoluthon Aposiopesis Dirimens Copulatio Expletive Onomatopoeia Scesis Onomaton
Anadiplosis Apostrophe Distinctio Hyperbaton Oxymoron Sententia
Analogy Appositive Enthymeme Hyperbole Parallelism Simile
Anaphora Assonance Enumeratio Hypophora Parataxis Symploce
Antanagoge Asyndeton Epanalepsis Hypotaxis Parenthesis Synecdoche
Antimetabole Catachresis Epistrophe Litotes Personification Understatement
Antiphrasis Chiasmus Epithet Metabasis Pleonasm Zeugma*
* Harris, Robert A. A
Hand Book of Rhetorical Devices.
April 6, 2005. http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm, November 3, 2007.
Please check Harris on-line for more information. This is an abbreviated list
of my own:
Metaphor – An implied comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in common. Simile is a metaphor using like or as.
Synecdoche – A figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole.
Puns- A generic name for those figures which make a play on words (Your argument is sound, nothing but sound)
Anaphora – Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginnings of successive clauses.
Epistrophe- Repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses.
Epanalepsis – Repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause.
Anadiplosis – Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause.
Climax – Arrangement of words, phrases or clauses in an order of increasing importance.
Alliteration – Repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words.
Antithesis – Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel sturucture.
Paralellism – similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases or clauses.
Anastrophe – Inversion of the natural or usual word order.
Parenthesis - Insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical (normal word order) flow of the sentence.
Apposition – Placing side by side two coordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation or modification of the first.
Ellipsis – deliberate omission of a word or of words which are readily implied by the context.
