Figure of speech

-is a form of expression (as a simile or metaphor) used to convey meaning or heighten effect often by comparing or identifying one thing with another that has a meaning or connotation familiar to the reader or listener

Personification
Personification is a type of metaphor that attributes human traits such as emotions, desires, sensations, physical gestures and speech to objects, animals, or abstract ideas. Poets use personification frequently. describes a river that "with its white hair staggers to the sea refers to a stone as "the closed eye of the dirt." Personification is an important poetic tool because it connects the reader to ideas and brings them to life. Examples of Using Personification in a Sentence The moon smiled. The wind wrapped itself around my face. Death had come for her. The alarm clock screamed at me this morning.

Aliteration
Alliteration use the same consonant sounds at the beginning of a series of words in a poem. For example, the sentence "We walked wayward" repeats the sound of the letter "W. However, not all poems that employ alliteration require that the words follow one after the other in the sentence; the poet could insert several words in between the sounds. . According to an article on Bright Hub Education by Trent Lorcher, poets use alliteration to point readers' attention to some aspect of the poem or to set the atmospheric tone or mood of the piece. Additionally, some poets use the technique to make a sound or wordplay or to create rhythm in the piece. This creates auditory interest for the readers of the poem, which keeps readers' attention.

Assonance
Assonance is also called vowel rhyme. It is the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words. It is used to reinforce the meanings of words or to set the mood. It also used to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse. Assonance can change the mood of the poem:

Long vowel sounds will decrease the energy at that point in the poem and make the mood more serious. Higher vowel sounds will increase the energy and lighten the mood.

Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two things through some connective, usually "like", "as", "than", or a verb such as "resembles". A simile differs from a metaphor in that the latter compares two unlike things by saying that the one thing is the other thing.
Using 'like' She is like a candy so sweet. He is like a refiner's fire. Her eyes twinkled like stars. He fights like a lion.

Using 'as' The use of 'as' makes the simile more explicit. She walks as gracefully as a cat. He was as hungry as a lion. He was as mean as a bull.

[is] AS adjective AS something as blind as a bat as cold as ice as flat as a pancake

meaning completely blind very cold completely flat

as gentle as a lamb
as light as a feather as old as the hills as sharp as a knife as strong as a bull as white as snow as wise as an owl

very gentle
very light very old very sharp very strong pure white very wise

Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that says that one thing is another different thing. This allows us to use fewer words and forces the reader or listener to find the similarities. The simplest form of metaphor is: "The [first thing] is a [second thing]." Example:
Her home was a prison.

George is a sheep.

Metaphor example

Metaphorical sense

Original sense

America is a melting pot.

place where different a container in which metals peoples, styles and cultures or other materials are are mixed together melted and mixed a four-legged animal kept for meat (pork) a hard, mineral material made of stone a long, limbless reptile (eg: cobra, python, viper)

John is a real pig when he eats. My father is a rock. How could she marry a snake like that!

greedy person very strong or reliable person traitor

The policeman let him off with a yellow card.

warning

(in soccer) a yellow card that the referee shows to players when cautioning them

Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech that uses an exaggerated or extravagant statement to create a strong emotional response. As a figure of speech it is not intended to be taken literally. Hyperbole is frequently used for humour. Examples of hyperbole are:
He's got tons of money. I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. Her brain is the size of a pea. They ran like greased lightning. He is older than the hills. I will die if she asks me to dance. She is as big as an elephant! I have told you a million times not to lie!

Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that deliberately uses two contradictory ideas. This contradiction creates a paradoxical image in the reader or listener's mind that generates a new concept or meaning for the whole. Some typical oxymorons are:

a deafening silence a living death sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind bitter-sweet

make haste slowly The Sounds of Silence (song title) he was conspicuous by his absence

 Anaphora
The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses. (Contrast with epiphora and epistrophe.) We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills" (Winston S. Churchill).

Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words. You are my sunshine.

 Irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea. The two identical twins were arguing. One of them told the other: "You're ugly" The thieves robbed the police station.

Onomatopoeia
The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. The firecracker made a loud ka-boom!