Poetry Terms

Language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation.

• figurative language

• simile

• metaphor

• dead metaphor

a type of figurative language that compares two things using “like” or “as”

• extended metaphor

• simile

• personification

• alliteration

a type of figurative language that compares two things without using “like” or “as”

• cacophony

• consonance

• metaphor

• assonance

figure of speech which has lost the original imagery of its meaning due to extensive, repetitive, and popular usage

• hyperbole

• free verse

• onomatope

• dead metaphor

a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. It is often comprised of more than one sentence and sometimes consists of a full paragraph.

• extended metaphor

• refrain

• apostrophe

• couplet

a figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes.

• quatrain

• personification

• rhyme

• rhyme scheme

a stylistic device in which a number of words, having the same first consonant sound, occur close together in a series.

• lyric poetry

• sonnet

• alliteration

• ballad

use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds primarily those of consonants to achieve desired results.

• epic

• narrative poetry

• haiku

• cacophony

repetitive sounds produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase.

• consonance

• idiom

• stanza

• speaker

two or more words close to one another repeat the same vowel sound but start with different consonant sounds.

• figurative language

• assonance

• simile

• metaphor