Rhetorical Devices

Glossary of Rhetorical Devices with examples.




Alliteration: repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence.

*Let us go forth to lead the land we love. J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural



Anaphora: the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines.

*We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. Churchill.



Anastrophe: transposition of normal word order; most often found in Latin in the case of prepositions and the words they control. Anastrophe is a form of hyperbaton.

*The helmsman steered; the ship moved on; yet never a breeze up blew. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

*Isdem in oppidis, Cicero

*Demosthenes, On the Crown 13

Antistrophe: repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses.

*In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo -- without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia -- without warning. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria -- without warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia -- without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland -- without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand -- and the United States --without warning. Franklin D. Roosevelt



Antithesis: opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction.



*Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater

*Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar



Climax: arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power. Often the last emphatic word in one phrase or clause is repeated as the first emphatic word of the next.

*One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Tennyson, Ulysses



Hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis or for rhetorical effect.

*My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow;

An hundred years should got to praise

Thine eyes and on thine forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest. Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"



Irony: expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another.

*Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar



Metaphor: implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it.



*Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Shakespeare, Macbeth



*The pen is mightier than the sword.



Onomatopoeia: use of words to imitate natural sounds; accommodation of sound to sense.

*At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit. Ennius



Oxymoron: apparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to contradict one another.



*I must be cruel only to be kind. Shakespeare, Hamlet



Paradox: an assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that may yet have some truth in it.

*What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young. George Bernard Shaw



Personification: attribution of personality to an impersonal thing.

*England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson





Simile: an explicit comparison between two things using 'like' or 'as'.

*My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease, Shakespeare, Sonnet CXLVII



*Reason is to faith as the eye to the telescope. D. Hume [?]

*Let us go then, you and I,

While the evening is spread out against the sky,

Like a patient etherized upon a table... T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock





Synecdoche: understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of metonymy.)

*Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6

*I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

*The U.S. won three gold medals. (Instead of, The members of the U.S. boxing team won three gold medals.)





----Adapted from University of Kentucky,

Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literatures, & Cultures

Lexington, KY 40506-0027


Hunting dogs howling
,the hyenas gibbering,
the lions roaring
, the ravens croaking
, the peacocks screeching
the rhino snorting
the foxes yelping
the hippos braying