POETIC DEVICES WITH ENGLISH MEANINGS
•Accumulation : Drawing
points into a powerful climax.
•Acutezza : The use of wit or wordplay.
•Acyron : Using a word opposite to what is meant.
•Adjunction : Putting the verb at the beginning.
•Allegory : Narrative using sustained metaphor.
•Alleotheta : Substituting one thing for another.
•Allusion : Indirect reference.
•Alliteration : Repetition of same initial sound.
•Analogy : A is like B. Using one thing to describe another.
•Anaphora : Repeating initial words.
•Anastrophe : Changing
normal word order.
Apostrophe : Address
to an absent or imaginary person
•Assonance : Repeating the same vowel sound.
•Cacophony : Harsh combination of words.
•Climax : Words ordered in ascending power.
•Diallage : Multiple arguments to establish a single point.
•Distinctio : Describing something by saying what it is not.
Ellipsis : omission of words that would make a
sentence explicit.
•Epistrophe :
Repetition of the same final word or phrase.
Epithet : A
defamatory or abusive word or phrase
•Euphemism : Substituting
offensive words with gentle ones.
•Fictio : Attributing of human traits to
creatures.
•Homophone : Different
words that sound the same.
•Hyperbole : Deliberate over-exaggeration.
•Irony : Saying something by using its
opposite.
•Litotes : Denying the contrary of what it being affirmed.
•Malapropism : replacing
a word with one that sounds similar.
•Metaphor : A is B. Using one thing to describe another.
•Metaplasmus : Deliberate
misspelling.
Metonymy : Using one item to represent another.
Onomatopoeia : Using
words that imitate the sound they denote
Oxymoron : Adjacent words that seem to contradict one another.
•Paradox : Seeming contradiction.
•Parachesis : Repeating the same sound in successive words.
•Paralipsis : Emphasis by obvious omission.
•Parallelism : Repeated patterns in a sentence.
•Personification : Giving
an object human characteristics.
•Proverb : An encapsulated and unquestioned wisdom.
•Pun : A play on words.
•Repetition : Repeating a single word.
•Rhyme : Repeating sounds at end of words.
•Simile : Explicit comparison between two
things.
•Synecdoche : Understanding
one thing with another.