What is a figure of speech?
A figure of speech is a word or phrase possessing a figurative meaning that is different from its literal definition; metaphor, simile, and irony are all examples of figures of speech.
Figure of Speech
Last Updated on February 25, 2021, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 144
Figure of speech (also called trope) - the expressive use of language in which words are used in other ways than their literal senses so as to suggest and produce pictures or images in a reader or hearer’s mind, bypassing logic and appealing directly to the imagination in order to...
(The entire section contains 144 words.)
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Figure of speech (also called trope) - the expressive use of language in which words are used in other ways than their literal senses so as to suggest and produce pictures or images in a reader or hearer’s mind, bypassing logic and appealing directly to the imagination in order to give particular emphasis to an idea or sentiment. There are three classes:
1. imagined similarities such as allegory, allusion, conceit, and simile 2. suggestive associations in which one work is linked with another such as hypallage, hyperbole, metonymy, and synecdoche 3. appeals to the ear and eye such as alliteration, anacoluthon, and onomatopoeia
Figures of speech may also be grouped into figures of thought in which words retain their meaning but not their rhetorical patterns.
Examples are given under each of the following listings.
see: analogy, allegory, alliteration, allusion, conceit, irony, metaphor, onomatopoeia, simile
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