Library / English Dictionary

RHETORICAL DEVICE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A use of language that creates a literary effect (but often without regard for literal significance)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("rhetorical device" is a kind of...):

device (something in an artistic work designed to achieve a particular effect)

Domain category:

rhetoric (study of the technique and rules for using language effectively (especially in public speaking))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "rhetorical device"):

enallage (a substitution of part of speech or gender or number or tense etc. (e.g., editorial 'we' for 'I'))

epanorthosis (immediate rephrasing for intensification or justification)

epiplexis (a rhetorical device in which the speaker reproaches the audience in order to incite or convince them)

hendiadys (use of two conjoined nouns instead of a noun and modifier)

hypallage (reversal of the syntactic relation of two words (as in 'her beauty's face'))

hyperbaton (reversal of normal word order (as in 'cheese I love'))

hypozeugma (use of a series of subjects with a single predicate)

hypozeuxis (use of a series of parallel clauses (as in 'I came, I saw, I conquered'))

hysteron proteron (reversal of normal order of two words or sentences etc. (as in 'bred and born'))

litotes; meiosis (understatement for rhetorical effect (especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary))

onomatopoeia (using words that imitate the sound they denote)

paraleipsis; paralepsis; paralipsis; preterition (suggesting by deliberately concise treatment that much of significance is omitted)

paregmenon (juxtaposing words having a common derivation (as in 'sense and sensibility'))

polysyndeton (using several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted (as in 'he ran and jumped and laughed for joy'))

prolepsis (anticipating and answering objections in advance)

wellerism (a comparison comprising a well-known quotation followed by a facetious sequel)

figure; figure of speech; image; trope (language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense)

anacoluthia; anacoluthon (an abrupt change within a sentence from one syntactic structure to another)

asyndeton (the omission of conjunctions where they would normally be used)

repetition (the repeated use of the same word or word pattern as a rhetorical device)

anastrophe; inversion (the reversal of the normal order of words)

antiphrasis (the use of a word in a sense opposite to its normal sense (especially in irony))

antithesis (the juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas to give a feeling of balance)

antinomasia (substitution of a title for a name)

apophasis (mentioning something by saying it will not be mentioned)

aposiopesis (breaking off in the middle of a sentence (as by writers of realistic conversations))

apostrophe (address to an absent or imaginary person)

catachresis (strained or paradoxical use of words either in error (as 'blatant' to mean 'flagrant') or deliberately (as in a mixed metaphor: 'blind mouths'))

chiasmus (inversion in the second of two parallel phrases)

climax (arrangement of clauses in ascending order of forcefulness)

conversion (interchange of subject and predicate of a proposition)

ecphonesis; exclamation (an exclamatory rhetorical device)

emphasis (special and significant stress by means of position or repetition e.g.)

Holonyms ("rhetorical device" is a part of...):

rhetoric (using language effectively to please or persuade)

Credits