A writer uses various literary terms to skillfully embellish and strengthen his written work and compositions. Literary terms are basically the techniques, style, employed by writers that can help in narrating a story in a better way. Literary terms are also a great way to improve the understanding of a language. Here are 10 literary terms, which you can use in your day to day written communication.
Abecedarius: The first letter of every word in a sentence or verse follows a particular order of certain letters in the alphabet.
Example: An Austrian army awfully arrayed.
Epigram: A short and a clever remark.
Example: I can resist everything but temptation.
Onomatopoeia: When a word is formed from the sound that an associated thing makes.
Example: Boom, bang, crash.
Alliteration: It is a repetition of identical initial consonant sounds within a group of words, even those spelled differently.
Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Anadiplosis: The repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of a sentence and then used again at the beginning of the next sentence.
Example: Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Metaphor: A word or phrase for one thing that is used to refer to another thing in order to show or suggest that they are similar.
Example: Love is a battlefield.
Epistrophe: It is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.
Example: Where affections bear rule, their reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued.
Simile: A figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared; and this comparison often uses the word like or as.
Example: She is like a rose and as thorny as a rose bush.
Hyperbole: It is an obvious and intentional exaggeration.
Example: I read a million books this summer.
Euphemism: It is the substitution of a mild or vague expression for an expression that is thought to be blunt, or offensive.
Example: Break wind is an euphemism for flatulence, kick the bucket is a euphemism that describes the death of a person and you are becoming a little thin on top means balding.
