Figures of Speech

Figures of speech are broadly defined as a way of saying one thing in terms of something else.

Simile- makes an explicit comparison between two things by using words such as like, as, than, appears, or seems.

She is as pretty as a flower.

He ran like the wind.

Metaphor- makes a comparison between two unlike things, but it does so implicitly without words such as like or as.

The cookies she made were bricks.

The assignment was a breeze.

Implied metaphor- is a less direct metaphor.

The man's feathers were a bit ruffled.

He brayed his refusal to leave.

Extended metaphor- a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms....

The fog comes in on little cat feet.

It sits looking over the harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then, moves on.

Controlling metaphors- a symbolic story, where the whole poem may be a metaphor for something else.

"Catch"

"She being Brand"

Pun- a play on words that relies on a word having more than one meaning or sounding like another word.

I finally found a spotter at the gym. It is like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

The new weed whacker is cutting-hedge technology.

Synecdoche- a figure of speech in which part of something is used to signify the whole.

He is behind bars.

She paid for it with plastic.

Metonymy- something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it.

At exactly ten o'clock the paper shufflers stopped for coffee.

She preferred the silver screen to reading.

Personification- the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things.

The wind howled.

The ocean waved hello to us.

Apostrophe- an address either to someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker or to something nonhuman that cannon comprehend.

"Thou still unravished bride of quietness."

"Hello darkness, my old friend, I have come to talk with you again."

Overstatement/Hyperbole- exaggeration that adds emphasis without intending to bye literally true.

The teenage boy ate everything in the house.

He has tons of money.

Understatement- says less than is intended.

When the neighbor hood is flooded saying "We have had a little rain."

Bill Gates is financially secure.

Paradox- a statement that initially appears to be self-contradictory but that, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense.

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

"Nobody goes to that restaurant, it is too crowded."

Oxymoron- a condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together.

Bitter sweet

clearly confused