This document defines and provides examples of 20 common figures of speech: alliteration, anaphora, antithesis, apostrophe, euphemism, hyperbole, litotes, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, onomatopoeia, personification, pun, irony, simile, understatement. Figures of speech use distinctive wording to achieve special rhetorical effects and are often used in literature and everyday language without conscious thought. Examples are given to illustrate each figure of speech.

1. FIGURES OF SPEECH
Prepared by:
Ancel Riego de Dios
Gemma De los Reyes
Kimberly Inguanzo

2. FIGURES OF SPEECH
• Figure of speech is a rhetorical device that achieves a
special effect by using words in distinctive ways.
Though there are hundreds of figures of speech, we'll
focus on just 20 of the most common figures.
• You will probably remember many of these terms from
your English classes. Figurative Language is often
associated with literature--and with poetry in
particular. But the fact is, whether we're conscious of it
or not, we use figures of speech every day in our own
writing and conversations.

3. Alliteration
The repetition of an initial consonant sound.
Examples:
"Pompey Pipped at the Post as Pippo Pounces"
(sports headline, Daily Express, Nov. 28, 2008)
"Good men are gruff and grumpy, cranky,
crabbed, and cross."
(Clement Freud)

4. Anaphora
The repetition of the same word or phrase at
the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
Example:
"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life
insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a
home in the country. What I had was a coat, a
hat and a gun."
(Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My
Lovely, 1940)

5. Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in
balanced phrases.
Examples:
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing."
(Goethe)
"Everybody doesn't like something, but
nobody doesn't like Sara Lee."
(advertising slogan)

6. Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent
person or thing, some abstract quality, an
inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.
Example:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."

7. Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one
considered offensively explicit.
Example:
Dan Foreman: Guys, I feel very terrible about
what I'm about to say. But I'm afraid you're both
being let go.
Lou: Let go? What does that mean?
Dan Foreman: It means you're being fired, Louie.
(In Good Company, 2004)

8. Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of
exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis
or heightened effect.
Examples:
"I was helpless. I did not know what in the world
to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and
could have hung my hat on my eyes, they
stuck out so far."
(Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi")

9. Litotes
A figure of speech consisting of an
understatement in which an affirmative is
expressed by negating its opposite.
Example:
"I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the
ladies; for, whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-
will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon
retaining an absolute power over wives."
(Abigail Adams, letter to John Adams, May 7, 1776)

10. Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike
things that actually have something important in
common.
Examples:
"The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner."
(Cynthia Ozick, "Rosa")
"But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely
hill."
(William Sharp, "The Lonely Hunter")

11. Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase
is substituted for another with which it is closely
associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of
describing something indirectly by referring to
things around it.
Example:
The White House asked the television networks for air
time on Monday night.

12. Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or
contradictory terms appear side by side.
Examples:
"How is it possible to have a civil war?"
(George Carlin)
"A yawn may be defined as a silent yell."
(G.K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw, 1909)

13. Onomatopoeia
The use of words that imitate the sounds
associated with the objects or actions they refer
to.
Example:
Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-
dong. The little train rumbled over the tracks."
("Watty Piper" [Arnold Munk], The Little Engine
That Could)

14. Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object
or abstraction is endowed with human qualities
or abilities.
Example:
"Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie."
(slogan on a package of Oreo cookies)

15. Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses
of the same word and sometimes on the similar
sense or sound of different words.
Examples:
Kings worry about a receding heir line.
I would like to go to Holland someday. Wooden
shoe?

16. Irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their
literal meaning. A statement or situation where
the meaning is contradicted by the appearance
or presentation of the idea.
Example:
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the
War Room."
(Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in
Dr. Strangelove, 1964)

17. Simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like“
or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar
things that have certain qualities in common.
Examples:
"Good coffee is like friendship: rich and warm and
strong."
(slogan of Pan-American Coffee Bureau)
"You know life, life is rather like opening a tin of
sardines. We're all of us looking for the key."
(Alan Bennett, Beyond the Fringe, 1960)

18. Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker
deliberately makes a situation seem less
important or serious than it is.
Examples:
"The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace."
(Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress")
"I am just going outside and may be some time."
(Captain Lawrence Oates, Antarctic
explorer, before walking out into a blizzard to face
certain death, 1912)