| Irony | The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning; or, incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs |
| Alliteration | The repetition of initial sounds in successve or neighboring words |
| Paradox | An apparently contradictory statement that actually contains some truth |
| Euphemism | An indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant |
| Hyperbole | Intentional exaggeration to create an effect |
| Litotes | A type of understatement in which an idea is expressed by negating its opposite (describing a particularly horrible scene by saying, “It was not a pretty picture.”) |
| Metonymy | Substituting the name of one object for another object closely associated with (“The pen [writing] is mighter than the sword [war/fighting]”) |
| Syllepsis | A construction in which one word is used in two different senses (“After he threw the ball, he threw a fit.”) |
| Chiasmus | A statement consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is strutrally reversed (“Susan walking in, and out rushed Mary”) |
| Synecdoche | Using one part of an object to represent the entire object (for example, referring to a car simply as “wheels”) |
| Pun | A play on words, often achieved through the use of similar sounds but different meanings |
| Allusion | A reference to something literary, mythological, or historical the author assumes the reader will recognize |
| Metaphor | A dircect comparrison of two different things |
| Symbol | An object that is used to represent something else |
| Oxymoron | An expression in which words that contradict each other are joined |
Hamlet Passage 1 Act 1, scene 2
August 6, 2019