This document provides definitions and examples of various figures of speech that can be used in writing to engage readers. It lists similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, metonymy, synecdoche, antonomasia, apostrophe, oxymoron, irony, hyperbole, euphemism, puns, climax, and anaphora. The document warns that while these devices can make writing more lively, overusing them can become tiresome for readers. Moderation is key to effectively employing figurative language.

1. FIGURES OF SPEECH
Contributing hugely to the liveliness of talk and writing s the use of figures of speech – those
colourful expressions in which words deviate from their literal sense in order to create a
dramatic image or a forceful impression in the mind of the reader or listener.
Here is a list of the better – known figures of speech. It carries an implicit warning :
1. Overuse can damage the health of your writing
2. By all means try to incorporate some of them (if appropriate) into anything you write.
3. The figures of speech help to engage the reader’s interest, and even to win the reader’s
acceptance of views.
4. Use them only in moderation. Figurative speech is like a seasoning or sugar. Try taking
too much of it, and it stops giving pleasure and starts to cloy.
 Simile – comparison of two unlike ideas or objects, typically using the word like or as.
Examples:
lips like rosebuds,
and kisses like wine
 Metaphor – description of one thing in terms of another that is related to it by analogy.
Examples:
She sailed across the room.
She’s an angel fallen from above.
 Personification (also known as prosopopoeia) – the representation of an object or idea
as human.
Examples:
.. the jovial moon smiling benignly down at us.
The sun kissed my skin.
 Onomatopoeia – use of words whose sound suggests their meaning.
Examples:
whoosh, passing breeze
"Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." (slogan of Alka Seltzer, U.S.)
 Metonymy – use of a concrete term to refer to some wider idea that it characterises.
Examples:
the crown for monarchy
The "sword" stands in for "military aggression and force"
 Synecdoche – use of the name of a part to refer to the whole, or vice versa.
Examples:
Forty sail to refer to forty ships
"Land ho! All hands on deck!" (Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island)
 Antonomasia- The use of a famous person’s name to represent someone who
resembles him.
Examples:
“God of poetry” for Apollo
“The City of Lights” for Paris

2.  Apostrophe- A figure of speech in which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is
addressed as if present and capable of understanding.
Examples:
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."
(Jane Taylor, "The Star," 1806)
"Blue Moon, you saw me
standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own."
(Lorenz Hart, "Blue Moon")
 Oxymoron - The definition of an oxymoron is a combination of contradictory words.
Examples:
"Ralph, if you're gonna be a phony, you might as well be a real phony."
Please, I didn't kill anyone. I'm an extreme pacifist.
 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.
Examples:
It’s a secret, only half of London knows about it.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room."
 Hyperbole - A figure of speech (a form of irony) in which exaggeration is used for
emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement. Adjective: hyperbolic. Contrast with
understatement.
Examples:
The things you don't know would fill a whole library and leave room for a few
pamphlets.
"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."
 Euphimism- The substitution of an inoffensive term (such as "passed away") for one
considered offensively explicit ("died").
Examples:
"The 'reconstruction' of New Orleans has become a euphemism for the destruction of the
city's cultural and historic heritage."
You've got a prime figure. You really have, you know.
Joanna Kersey: That's a euphemism for fat.
 Pun- A play on words, either on different senses of the same word or on the similar
sense or sound of different words.
Examples:
I would like to go to Holland someday. Wooden shoe?
The gun shot opportunities.
 Climax – refers to a figure of speech in which words, phrases, or clauses are arranged in
order of increasing importance.
Examples:
"There are three things that will endure: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of
these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it gins to bud;

3. A brittle glass that's broken presently:
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
Shakespear, The Passionate Pilgrim
 Anaphora- A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of
successive clauses.
Examples:
"I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off
name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you, jerkoff."
"It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all
over the place."