Figures Of Speech

” A Figure of Speech is a deviation from the ordinary use of words with a view of increasing their effect.”

There are many Figures of Speech. Some important figures of speech are below –

                             1. Simile

Definition – A Simile is a comparison between two objects of different kinds, which have at least one point in common. The word ‘as’, ‘like’ or ‘so’ are used for comparison.

Examples –

1. We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

2. It droppeth as a gentle rain from Heaven.

3. She is as fresh as dew.

4. She hangs like a star in the dew of our song.

5. I wondered lonely as a cloud.

6. Live like a hermit and work like a horse.

7. She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.

8. She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.

Definition – In Metaphor the things compared are treated as one and the same and the words of comparison ‘as’, ‘like’ or ‘so’are not used.

Examples –

1. Life is a dream.

2. The camel is the ship of the desert.

3. Kalidas is the Shakespeare of India.

4. The news was a dagger to his heart.

5. Life is not a bed of roses.

6. Friendship is a kind of sheltering tree.

7. Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

8. I see a lily on thy brow.

9. Integrity is the backbone of character.

10. He is the pillar of the administration.

                               3. Personification

Definition – In personification, lifeless objects and abstract ideas are thought of as persons having life.

Examples –

1. Opportunity knocks at the door but once.

2. Anxiety is sitting on her face.

3. Love is blind.

4. The moon veiled her face.

5. But patience to prevent that murmur soon replies.

6. Experience is the best teacher.

7. The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon.

8. Death lays his icy hands on kings.

9. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil.

10. Authority forgets a dying king.

                          4. Apostrophe

Definition –  An Apostrophe is a direct address to the dead, to the absent or to a personified object or idea.

Examples –

1. O Liberty ! Why are you so dear?

2. O Death ! Come soon.

3. O mighty Caesar ! Dost thou lie so low?

4. O Grave ! Where is thy victory?

5. Frailty, thy name is woman.

                          5. Oxymoron

Definition – In this Figures of Speech, two opposite qualities are added to the same thing.

Examples –

1. He is regularly irregular.

2. And having nothing, he hath all.

3. Life is a bitter sweet.

4. He was feeling sweet pain.

5. It is an open secret.

6. James I was the wisest fool.

7. Our sweetest song are those that tell of saddest thoughts.

8. This idly busy rolls their world away.

                              6. Hyperbole

Definition – In Hyperbole, things are shown as greater or less, better or worse, than they really are.

Examples –

1. She swept oceans of tears.

2. Rivers of blood flowed in the battle.

3. I have not seen him for ages.

4. The waves rolled mountain high.

5. Ten thousand saw I at a glance.

6. All perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

7. They build the nation’s pillars deep and lift them to the sky.

8. Belinda smiled and all the world was gay.

                             7. Onomatopoeia

Definition – In this Figures of Speech, the sound suggestions the sense or meaning.

Examples –

1. I babble on the pebbles.

2. Bees hum.

3. The cats new.

4. The guns of hunters snap and crack.

5. The snake are hissing and the bees are buzzing.

6. Murmuring of innumerable bees.

7. The curfew tolls the knell of a parting day.

8. I heard the water lapping on the crag.