Literary Devices
Hyperbole: Definition, Examples, and How Exaggeration Works
Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration, and a listener who believes it has misread it. Because a speaker who calls a bag…
Juxtaposition: Definition, Examples, and Differences
Juxtaposition is the placement of two contrasting people, images, or scenes near each other so their differences, or their hidden…
Motif: Definition and Examples in Literature
A motif is a recurring image, phrase, sound, or idea that returns across a work and builds toward its larger…
Palindrome: Meaning, Examples, and How to Write One
A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or date that reads the same forward and backward, the way racecar does…
Logos: Definition, Types, and Examples in Rhetoric
Aristotle named logos as one of three modes of persuasion in his treatise Rhetoric, composed around 350 BCE. The word…
Hubris: Meaning, Greek Origin and Literary Examples
Hubris names a specific kind of pride: the excessive, boundary-breaking confidence of a person. That person believes the ordinary rules,…
Doppelganger Meaning: Origin and Literary Examples
A doppelganger is a double of a living person. In everyday use that means an uncanny lookalike, while the older…
Haiku: Meaning, Structure, and How to Write One
A haiku is a three-line, unrhymed poem that captures one moment in nature, traditionally in a 5-7-5 sound pattern. Japanese…
Epithet: Definition, Types, and Literary Examples
An epithet is a descriptive word or phrase fixed to a name, used to single out one quality of the…
Epiphany: Meaning, Origin, and Literary Examples
An epiphany is a sudden flash of insight, the moment a hidden truth becomes visible all at once. The word…
Diction: Types, Examples, and Its Effect on Tone
Diction is a writer's or speaker's deliberate choice of words, and that choice shapes how a reader receives an idea.…
Ethos: Definition, Meaning, and Examples in Rhetoric
Ethos is the appeal through a speaker's or writer's credibility and character rather than through logic or emotion. Aristotle named…
Analogy: Definition, Types, and 30+ Examples
An analogy is a comparison between two unlike subjects that explains one of them by showing how it works like…
Anecdote: Meaning, Types, and Examples
An anecdote is a short, true story told to make a point. A grandmother's story about her first job, a…
Asyndeton: Definition, Examples, and How to Use It
Asyndeton is the deliberate omission of a conjunction such as and, but, or or between words, phrases, or clauses that…
Aporia: Meaning, Examples, and How to Use It
Aporia is a rhetorical device in which a speaker or writer voices real or performed doubt about a question, usually…