A-Z: General definitions
- F R Leavis
- Fable
- Fabliau
- Faith
- Faith without Works
- Faithful
- Fall
- Fall of Humankind
- Fall of the angels
- Fallacy
- Fallen angel
- Fallen humanity
- Falling action
- Familiar
- Farce
- Farcical
- Fascism
- Fascist
- Fasting
- Fat of the land
- Fatalism
- Fate
- Father
- Father of the Church
- Father, forgive them '
- Father-confessor
- Faun
- Faunus
- Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom
- Feet
- Feet of Clay
- Felicity
- Felix Culpa
- Fellowship
- Feminine ending
- Feminine Rhyme
- Feminism
- Femme Fatale
- Festival
- Feudal
- Fiction
- Fictions
- Field Marshal
- Field of Blood
- Fielding
- Fiend
- Fiery furnace
- Fig Leaves
- Fig-tree
- Figurative
A-Z: General definitions: Figurative
Definition
In literature, words are used in a non-literal sense much of the time, to make the language striking and persuasive. Sounds are also carefully arranged to have certain effects. This is all figurative language. Figures are categories, often derived from rhetoric, which describe the different ways words are used to create different effects. See Alliteration, Imagery, Metonymy, Onomatopoeia, Personification, Synecdoche, Figure.
Alliteration is a device frequently used in poetry or rhetoric (speech-making) whereby words starting with the same consonant are used in close proximity- e.g. 'fast in fires', 'stars, start'.
Figure of speech in which a person or object or happening is described in terms of some other person, object or action, either by saying X is Y (metaphor); or X is like Y (simile). In each case, X is the original, Y is the image.
Figure of speech, wherein a certain quality of a thing or a person is used to represent it entirely
A word which suggests the sound it is describing: e.g. 'crackle', 'whisper', 'cuckoo'.
A figure of speech where a non-person, for example an animal, the weather, or some inanimate object, is described as if it were a person, being given human qualities.
A figure of speech, where some part of an object is taken to represent it all.
A form of expression, such as a metaphor or simile, which is intended to add beauty, variety or impact to a literary text.
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