A List of Words Regarding Words You Don’t Know Explaining Those Words with Words
Anaphora – repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more successive verses, clauses, or
sentences.
Example: “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, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Chiasmus - a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases, as in “He went to the
country, to the town went she.”
Example:
“He came in triumph and in defeat departs.”
Loose Sentence - A sentence structure in which a main clause is followed by one or more coordinate or
subordinate phrases and clauses.
Examples:
I found a large hall, obviously a former garage, dimly lit, and packed with cots. (Eric Hoffer)
I knew I had found a friend in the woman, who herself was a lonely soul, never having known the love of
man or child. (Emma Goldman)
Coordination - The grammatical connection of two or more words, phrases, or clauses (conjuncts) to give
them equal emphasis and importance.
The common conjunctions--and, but, for, or, nor, yet, and so--are structural words that join the elements of
a coordinate structure.
Examples:
"I looked up my family tree and found out I was the sap."
"Bailey and I lay the coins on top of the cash register."
Subordination - The process of linking two clauses in a sentence so that one clause is dependent on (or
subordinate to) another. Contrast with coordination.
Clauses joined by coordination are called main clauses (or independent clauses). This is in contrast to
subordination, in which a subordinate clause (for example, an adverb clause or an adjective clause) is
attached to a main clause.
Examples:
"While Fern was in school, Wilbur was shut up inside his yard."
(E.B. White, Charlotte's Web. Harper, 1952)
"One summer morning, after I had swept the dirt yard of leaves, spearmint-gum wrappers and Viennasausage labels, I raked the yellow-red dirt, and made half-moons carefully, so that the design stood out
clearly and masklike."
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1969)
Adverbial Clause - A dependent clause used as an adverb within a sentence to indicate time, place,
condition, contrast, concession, reason, purpose, or result. Also known as adverbial clause.
An adverb clause begins with a subordinating conjunction (such as if, when, because, or although) and
usually includes a subject and a predicate.
Example:
a. Reason
Because Marianne loved Willoughby, she refused to believe that he had deserted her.
b. Time
When Fanny returned, she found Tom Bertram very ill.
c. Concession
Although Mr D'Arcy disliked Mrs Bennet he married Elizabeth.
d. Manner
Henry changed his plans as the mood took him.
e. Condition
If Emma had left Hartfield, Mr Woodhouse would have been unhappy.
Adjective Clause - A dependent clause used as an adjective within a sentence. Also known as an adjectival
clause or a relative clause.
An adjective clause usually begins with a relative pronoun (which, that, who, whom, whose), a relative
adverb (where, when, why), or a zero relative.
Examples:
"Love, which was once believed to contain the Answer, we now know to be nothing more than an inherited
behavior pattern."
"My brother, who was normally quite an intelligent human being, once invested in a booklet that promised
to teach him how to throw his voice."
Periodic Sentence - A long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended syntax, in which the
sense is not completed until the final word--usually with an emphatic climax. Contrast with loose sentence
and cumulative sentence.
Example:
"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,
that is genius."
Cumulative Sentence - An independent clause followed by a series of subordinate constructions (phrases
or clauses) that gather details about a person, place, event, or idea. Contrast with periodic sentence.
In Notes Toward a New Rhetoric, Francis and Bonniejean Christensen observe that the main clause of a
cumulative sentence "is likely to be stated in general or abstract or plural terms. With the main clause
stated, the forward movement of the sentence stops, the writer shifts down to the lower level of
generalization or abstraction or to singular terms, and goes back over the same ground at this lower level.
Example:
"Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper, enlarging the circle of light in the clearing and creating out of
the darkness the sudden blue sleeves of my sweater, the green leaves of jewelweed by my side, the ragged
red trunk of a pine."
Parataxis - A rhetorical term for phrases or clauses arranged independently: a coordinate, rather than a
subordinate, construction. (Contrast with hypotaxis.) Adjective: paratactic.
"In paratactic prose, clauses are loosely connected, creating a lopping discourse of here's another thing
and another thing and another thing. . . . Paratactic prose occurs more frequently in narrative and
explanation, and hypotactic prose more frequently in explicit arguments."
(Jeanne Fahnestock, Rhetorical Style: The Uses of Language in Persuasion. Oxford Univ. Press, 2011)
Examples:
"I came; I saw; I conquered."
(Julius Caesar)
"Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better--splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers,
jostling one another's umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foothold at street
corners."
(Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1852-1853)
Hypotaxis - An arrangement of phrases or clauses in a dependent or subordinate relationship (in other
words, phrases or clauses ordered one under another). Also called the subordinating style. (Contrast with
parataxis.) Adjective: hypotactic.
"Hypotactic style allows syntax and structure to supply useful information. Instead of simple juxtaposition
of elements by way of simple and compound sentences, hypotactic structures rely more on complex
sentences to establish relationships among elements. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) observed, 'The
hypotactic construction is the argumentative construction par excellence. . . . Hypotaxis creates frameworks
[and] constitutes the adoption of a position' (p. 158)."
(James Jasinski, Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies. Sage, 2001)
Virginia Woolf's Hypotactic Style
"Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing
when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and
deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with
bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the
act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our
heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a
tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm-chair and confuse his 'Rinse the mouth--rinse the
mouth' with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us--when we think of
this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its
place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature."
(Virginia Woolf, "On Being Ill." New Criterion, January 1926)
Antithesis - A rhetorical term for the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses.
Plural: antitheses. Adjective: antithetical.
Example:
"There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today."
(Mignon McLaughlin, The Complete Neurotic's Notebook. Castle Books, 1981)
Inversion - Inversion happens when we reverse (invert) the normal word order of a structure, most
commonly the subject-verb word order. For example, a statement has the subject (s) before the verb (v), but
to make question word order, we invert the subject and the verb, with an auxiliary (aux) or modal verb (m)
before the subject (s).
Example:
[S]She [V]sings.
[AUX]Does [S]she [V]sing?
Auxiliary verbs are also known as 'helping verbs'.
The three most common auxiliary verbs are:
be, do and have
I am leaving = Leaving is the main verb. Am is the auxiliary.
She has arrived = Arrived is the main verb. Has is the auxiliary.
Do you smoke? = Smoke is the main verb. Do is the auxiliary.
Common Modal Verbs
Can
Ought to
Could
Shall
May
Should
Might
Will
Must
Would
Metonymy - the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example
suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.
Synecdoche - A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in
Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland's baseball team”).
Subjunctive - The English subjunctive is used to form sentences that do not describe known objective
facts. These include statements about one's state of mind, such as opinion, belief, purpose, intention, or
desire. The subjunctive mood is also used for statements that are contrary to fact, such as If I were a giraffe,
... (subjunctive), as distinguished from I was a child.
Polysyndeton - Polysyndeton is a stylistic device in which several coordinating conjunctions are used in
succession in order to achieve an artistic effect. Polysyndeton examples are found in literature and in dayto-day conversations.
The term polysyndeton comes from a Greek word meaning “bound together”. It makes use of coordinating
conjunctions like “and”, “or”, “but” and “nor” (mostly and and or) which are used to join successive
words, phrases or clauses in such a way that these conjunctions are even used where they might have been
omitted. For example, in the sentence “We have ships and men and money and stores,” the coordinating
conjunction “and” is used in quick succession to join words occurring together. In a normal situation, the
coordinating conjunction “and” is used to join the last two words of the list and the rest of the words in the
list are separated or joined by a comma.
Example:
“And Joshua, and all of Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and
the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent,
and all that he had.”
Asyndeton - Syndeton and asyndeton are opposite to each other. Syndeton includes addition of multiple
conjunctions such as in “He eats and sleeps and drinks.” On the other hand, asyndeton is the elimination or
leaving out of conjunctions such as in “He eats, sleeps, drinks.”
Both create a completely different effect. Syndeton slows down the rhythm of speech and makes it
moderate whereas asyndeton speeds up the rhythm of the speech.
Example:
“Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?”
Irony - Irony is a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is
different from the actual meaning of the words. It may also be a situation that may end up in quite a
different way than what is generally anticipated. In simple words, it is a difference between the appearance
and the reality.
Examples:
The name of Britain’s biggest dog was “Tiny”.
You laugh at a person who slipped stepping on a banana peel and the next thing you know, you slipped too.
Abstract Diction - Language that describes qualities that cannot be perceived with the five senses. For
instance, calling something pleasant or pleasing is abstract, while calling something yellow or sour is
concrete. The word domesticity is abstract, but the word sweat is concrete.
Examples of abstract terms include love, success, freedom, good, moral, democracy, and any -ism
(chauvinism, Communism, feminism, racism, sexism). These terms are fairly common and familiar, and
because we recognize them we may imagine that we understand them—but we really can't, because the
meanings won't stay still.
Paradox - The term Paradox is from the Greek word “paradoxon” that means contrary to expectations,
existing belief or perceived opinion. It is a statement that appears to be self-contradictory or silly but may
include a latent truth. It is also used to illustrate an opinion or statement contrary to accepted traditional
ideas. A paradox is often used to make a reader think over an idea in innovative way.
Examples:
“I can resist anything but temptation.” – Oscar Wilde
“I must be cruel to be kind.” (Hamlet)
Idiomatic Language - An idiom is a common word or phrase with a culturally understood meaning that
differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest. For example, an English speaker would
understand the phrase "kick the bucket" to mean "to die" – and also to actually kick a bucket.