Metaphor

In his opinion he had never been able to conquer pride. (A.H.)

Louie fell down the stairs to the telephone. He was very excited, and began to call joyously in all directions he shared his plans with Herb and Morrie and Bat, and then tore over to the hospital. (Th.W.)

Sustained metaphor

Beauty is but a flower

Which wrinkles will devour. (O. N.)

The idea grew and flowered. (Th. W.)

Personification

Trees wrapped thick grey mist round their shoulders to protect their last

leaves. (J.C.)

Florence was little more than a child in years – not yet fourteen – and the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where Death had lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set on older fancy brooding on vague terrors. (D.)

Metonymy

The train … carried its maximum cargo of wet clothes, the wearers of which were simply so many irritable ghosts. (J.B.P.)

It was the first time a mink coat had ever walked into his office. (J.A.)

Irony

Stony smiled the sweet smile of an alligator. (J. St.)

Henry could get gloriously tipsy on tea and conversation. (Al. H.)

Sarcasm

But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world.

…As the great champion of freedom and national independence he conquers and annexes half the world and calls it Colonization. (B. Sh.)

Hyperbole

…he’ll go to sleep, my God he should, eight martinis before dinner and enough wine to wash an elephant. (T.C.)

Understatement

There was not a fraction of a second without its flash and roar. (R.A.)

Epithet

Tea that evening was partaken in fearsome silence. (H.M.)

The principle picture on the program was pathetic and they all cried happily and generously. (Th. W.)

Oxymoron

He was also the most outrageously attractive man, Abby had ever seen. (J.C.)

The little girl who had done this was eleven – beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be who art destined after a few years to be inexpressibly lovely…. (Sc.F.)

Zeugma

He felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same time. (H.M.)

“Have you been seeing any spirits?” inquired the old gentleman. “Or taking any?” added Bob Allen. (D.)

Pun

Did you hit a woman with a child?

No. Sir, I hit her with a brick. (Th. S.)

Semantically False Chain

He installed a wall-to-wall carpet in the living room, an oak table in the dining room, a dishwasher in the kitchen, and more than occasionally Miss Bigelow in the bedroom. (J.A.)

Violation of the Phraseological Unit

He finds time to have a finger or a foot in most things that happen round here. (J.L.)

Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his mouth which was rather curly and large. (J.G.)

Inversion

Occasionally , students protested at the unrelenting stress, and a few dropped

out…. (M.W.)

Up came the file and down sat the editor, with Mr. Pickwick at his side. (D.)

Rhetorical question

Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? (Gr. Gr.)

Ellipsis

One step forward, one step back. (J.C.)

Repetition

Ordinary repetition

There were big palms and the green benches in the public garden. … Artists liked the way the palms grew… (E. H.)

Anaphora a… a… a…

Her favourite flowers filled the room. Her clothes were in the wardrobes in her

room. Her brushes were on the table. (D. du M.)

Epiphora …a. …a. …a.

It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. ..The sea broke in a long line in the rain. (E. H.)

Framing a… a… .

He ran away from the battle . He was an ordinary human being that didn’t want to kill or be killed, so he ran away from the battle. (St. H.)

Anadiplosis / catch repetition …a. a …

Hopeless minutes turned into hours, hours into days… (J.A.)

Chain repetition …a. a…d. d…c. c…

Failure meant poverty, poverty meant squalor, squalor led, in the final stages, to the smells and stagnation. (D. du M.)

At first he looked shocked. Then, as realization hit him, he began to smile, the smile grew into grin, the grin worked its way into laughter. (C.A.)

Parallelism

“If you are sorrowful, let me know why, and be sorrowful too; if you waste away and you are paler and weaker every day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us be poor together; but let me be with you.” (D.)

Chiasmus / reversed parallelism

There are so many sons who won’t have anything to do with their fathers, and so many fathers who won’t speak to their sons (O. W.)

Polysyndeton

And the coach, and the coachman, and the horses, and rattled, and jangled, and whipped, and cursed, and swore, and tumbled on together, till they came to Golden Square. (D.)

Asyndeton

Through his brain, slowly sifted the things they had done together. Walking together. Dancing together. Sitting silent together. Watching people together. (P. A.)

Suspense

“…. The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life – the day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than any other man in the world – the day on which I give the Bleak House its little mistress – shall be next month, then,” said my guardian. (D.)

If –
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs sand blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
….
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think and – not make thoughts your aim,
….
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my Son! (R. K.)

Climax / gradation

Suddenly there was a big cheer… .Then the cheering stopped, there was chattering, then it got quieter and then it was completely silent. (C.A.)

There are drinkers. There are drunkards. There are alcoholics. But these are only steps down the ladder. Right down at the bottom is the meths drinker – and man can’t sink lower than that. (W.D.)

Antithesis

In life there is always balance. Life and death, male and female, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, win and lose, love and hate. Lost and found. (C. A.)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times , it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, ... (D.)

Litotes

But if I was puzzled and disconcerted, I was not unimpressed. (W.S.M.)

They were not criminals or outcasts. (M.W.)

Mr. Fussy doesn’t look too happy either,’ whispered Amber. (J.C.)

Simile

Suspicions like fleas bit at her body giving her no peace. (J.A.)

Aunt’s Phoebe’s voice rang out like a bugle; a call to battle. (N.B.)

Remarks of this kind being as natural from his sister as breathing. (N.B.)

Periphrasis

The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa. (I. Sh.)

Jean nodded without turning and slid between two vermillion-coloured buses so the two drivers simultaneously used the same qualitative word. (J.G.)

Reported speech

She hadn’t wanted to marry him or anyone else, for that matter, unless it was someone like her father. But there was no one like her father. No one she had ever seen. So, oh, well, what’s the diff! You have to get married some time. (E.F.)

The tingling stopped. She plunged into guilt, feeling as cold and hard as the glass vase. She was a wife and mother; whatright did she have to freedom? Responsibilities pulled at her, and attachments. Whathad happened to them? Why wasn’t she lonely, worried, anxious to get back where she belonged? (J.M.)

Emphatic use of punctuation

M a r g a r e t: Father! (She runs to him…and flings herself upon him.) Father! Father, Father, Father, Father! (R.B.)

“The truth of the matter, is, Scobie, I’m…’ Scobie looked up from the encyclopedia. “Yes?” “Oh, I was jus thinking aloud.” (Gr. Gr.)

O l w e n: Martin didn’t shoot himself.

F r e d a: Martin didn’t –

O l w e n: Of course, he didn’t. I shot him. (J.B.P.)

Italics

“They’ve killed him, those vile, filthy foreigners. My baby son.”

Sam Browne, still mystified, read the telegram. He then stood to attention, saluted (although not wearing a cap), and said solemnly: “A clean sportin’ death, an Englishman’s death.” (R.A.)

Capital letters

“WILL YOU BE QUIET!” he bawled. (A. S.)

Alliteration

From outside came a terrific rumble and roaring. (R.A.)

…he swallowed the hint with a gulp and a gasp and a grin. (R. K.)

Onomatopoeia

Then with an enormous, shattering rumble, sludge-puff sludge… puff, the train came into the station.(A. S.)

Graphon

Rhoda May’s wails rose louder. Her father slapped her smartly and roared: “Git in the house. Git in there. – You git in there, too Mary”. (Th. W.)

Say, Ike, what do you think we oughta do? I think we oughta go down on the boat to Seattle, Wash., like a coupla dude passengers. (J.D.P.)