Tropes and Schemes in Play

A figure of speech is any device or pattern of language in which meaning is enhanced or changed. The term has two subcategories:

Trope: using a word to mean something other that its ordinary meaning.

Scheme: preserving the original meaning of words but placing them in a significant arrangement of some kind. — Adapted from Richard A. Lanham's A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (2nd ed.)

Metaphor — an implied comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in common: words are loaded pistols — J.P. Sartre

Simile — an explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature yet than have something in common:

Synecdoche — [syNECdakey] a figure of speech in which a part stands for a whole:

a) Genus substituted for species: vessel for ship

b) Species substituted for genus: cutthroat for assassin

c) Part substituted for whole: hands for helpers

d) Matter for what is made from it» canvas for sail

Metonymy — [meTONymy] substitution of some attribute or suggestive word for what is actually meant: I believe more in the sissors than I do in the pencil.— Truman Capote

Puns — generic name for those figures of speech which make a play on words:

a) Antanaclasis — [antaNAClasis] repetition of a word in two different senses: draft a designated driver. Beer ad.

b) Paranomasia — [paranoMAYsia] use of words alike in sound but different in meaning: it was a foul act to steal my fowl

c) Syllepsis — [syLEPsis] use of a word understood differently in relations to two or more other words, which it modifies or governs: he lost his hat and his temper

Anthimeria — [anthiMIRea] the substitution of one part of speech for another: the thunder would not peace at my bidding (Shakespeare)

Periphrasis [perRIPHrasis]— substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name for a quality associated with the name: Tom Delay, the hammer

Personification — investing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities or abilities: the ground thirsts for rain

Hyperbole — [hyPERbole] the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect: his eloquence would split rocks

Litotes — [LIE-tuh-tees] — a deliberate use of understatement, not to deceive someone but to enhance the impressiveness of what we say: a not unhappy crowd

a) Parallelism — similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses: He tried to make the law clear, precise, and equitable.

b) Antithesis — the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure:

a) Anastrophe— inversion of the natural or usual word order:

b) Paranthesis — insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactic flow of the sentence:

c) Apposition — placing side by side two co-ordinate elements, the second of which serves as an explanation of the first:

a) Ellipsis — deliberate omission of a word or words which are already implied by the context:

b) Asyndeton — deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses:

a) Polysyndeton —