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Handbook of Rhetorical Devices

Four Master Tropes (after Burke)

Metaphor

An implied comparison between two unlike things that reveals something they have in common. Topic of similarity.

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. (King, "I Have a Dream")

Synecdoche

Substitution of a part for the whole it embodies. Concentric pattern.

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. (King, "I Have a Dream")

Metonymy

Substitution of one part for another part, or of an operating part for the entity that operates it. Contiguous pattern.

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself. (Lincoln, "Second Inaugural")

Irony

Use of a term in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the word. Topics of contraries or contradiction.

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. (Lincoln, "Second Inaugural")

Other Tropes

Word-play

Antanaclasis. Repetition of the same word in two different senses.

Paronomasia. Play on words alike in sound but different in meaning.

Syllepsis. Play on a word understood differently in relation to two or more other words, which it modifies or governs.

We meet by accident. (Slogan on a tow truck)

Anthimeria

The substitution of one part of speech for another (i.e. using a noun as a verb).

"First we have to dimension the cabinet." (Norm Abrams on "New Yankee Workshop)

Periphrasis/ Antonomasia

Substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name or of a proper name for a quality associated with the name.

Personification/ Prosopoeia

Investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities or capacities.

Tropes of Degree

Hyperbole. The use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.

Auxesis. Overstatement. Magnifying the importance of something by referring to it with an exaggerating name.

Meiosis. Understatement. Lessening the importance of something by referring to it with a diminishing name.

Litotes. Use of understatement for the purpose of enhancement, emphasis or heightened effect.

Rhetorical Question

Asking a question not for the purpose of information but in order to assert or deny something obliquely. Asking a question whose answer is apparent in order to drive home a point.

Onomatopoeia

Use of words whose sound echoes the sense.

Oxymoron

Juxtaposition of two contradictory terms, or the same term in two contradictory senses. Similar to a contradiction in terms.

Figures or Schemes

Clause Symmetry

Parallelism or parison. Symmetrical meaning or word order in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. General class for the following forms of clause symmetry.

Homoioteleuton. Two or more clauses ending with the same or rhyming words.

Epistrophe. Similar to homeoteleuton, but with a stricter pattern of repetition of the same word or group of words.

Anaphora. Two or more clauses beginning with the same word or words.

Antithesis. The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure.

Ask not what your country can do for you—
Ask what you can do for your country. (Antithesis, chiasmus)

Isocolon. Clauses balanced in length and matched grammatically.

Syncrisis. Comparison and contrast in parallel clauses. Similar to antithesis.

Hyperbaton (Unusual Word Order)

Anastrophe. Inversion of the natural or usual word order.

Parenthesis. Interpolation of a word or phrase in a position that interrupts the normal syntax of the sentence.

Apposition. Placing side by side two coordinate clauses, the second of which explains, amplifies or modifies the first.

Hendiadys. Conveying one meaning with two nouns linked by conjuction instead of with a noun and an adjective.

Omission of words or phrases

Ellipsis. Omission of a word or phrase already implied by the context.

Asyndeton. Omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses.

Polysyndeton. Use of repetitive or multiple conjunctions.

Figures of Repetition

Alliteration. Repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words.

Assonance/Consonance. Rhyming vowels surrounded by different consonants; or, rhyming consonants combined with different vowels. When either occurs in the middle of a line, it is often called internal rhyme.

But oh, my dear,
How rich and rare
And root-down-deep
And wild and sweet
It is to laugh.
(Incorporates assonance, consonance, alliteration and polysyndeton).

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 / gradatio. Otherwise known as "staircase parallelism." Repetition of the last preceding element with addition of the next element in the sequence.

"For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost,
for want of the horse the rider was lost,
for want of the rider the battle was lost,
for want of the battle the kingdom was lost,
and all for the want of a horseshoe nail."
(Incorporates gradatio, anaphora and epanalepsis.)

Antimetabole. Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse order. Often used to form antitheses.

Chiasmus. "Crisscross." Repetition of beginning and ending words in a clause in reverse order. Often overlaps with antimetabole, but chiasmus is the more frequently used term.

Polyptoton. Repetition of similar words derived from the same root.

Antistrophe. Repetition of a word or phrase in a second context in the same position it held in an earlier and similar context.

Exergasia. Repeating the same thought in many figures. (Also tropic).