Define the various figures of speech together with an example of each.
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Certainly. There are many figures of speech, and classifications differ. The following are among the most important, especially for our discussion of explicit and implicit meaning.
Various Figures of Speech
1. Metaphor
Definition: Describes one thing as another because of similarity.
Example: “Life is a journey.”
Implicit meaning: Life has stages, directions, obstacles, and destinations.
2. Simile
Definition: Explicitly compares things, usually using like or as.
Example: “Life is like a journey.”
Implicit meaning: Life resembles a journey.
3. Metonymy
Definition: Uses an associated thing to stand for something else.
Example: “The White House announced it.”
Implicit meaning: The U.S. administration announced it.
4. Synecdoche
Definition: Uses a part for the whole, or the whole for a part.
Example: “We need more hands.”
Implicit meaning: We need more workers.
5. Personification
Definition: Gives human qualities to a nonhuman thing.
Example: “History will judge us.”
Implicit meaning: Future people will judge what we did.
6. Hyperbole
Definition: Deliberately exaggerates something for effect.
Example: “I’ve told you a thousand times.”
Implicit meaning: I have told you very many times.
7. Understatement
Definition: Deliberately says less than the situation warrants.
Example: After a disastrous loss: “It wasn’t our best day.”
Implicit meaning: It was a very bad day.
8. Litotes
Definition: Expresses something through negating its opposite.
Example: “That is not a bad idea.”
Implicit meaning: That is a fairly good idea.
9. Irony
Definition: Says something whose intended meaning contrasts with its apparent meaning.
Example: During terrible weather: “What beautiful weather!”
Implicit meaning: The weather is terrible.
10. Oxymoron
Definition: Puts apparently contradictory terms together.
Example: “Deafening silence.”
Implicit meaning: The silence is extraordinarily noticeable.
11. Paradox
Definition: Makes an apparently contradictory statement that may contain a truth.
Example: “Less is more.”
Implicit meaning: Simplicity can sometimes produce a greater effect.
12. Euphemism
Definition: Replaces an unpleasant or harsh expression with a gentler one.
Example: “He passed away.”
Implicit meaning: He died.
13. Rhetorical question
Definition: Asks a question to make a point rather than obtain an answer.
Example: “Who wants another war?”
Implicit meaning: Almost nobody should want another war.
14. Apostrophe
Definition: Directly addresses an absent person, abstraction, or nonhuman thing.
Example: “O Death, where is thy sting?”
Implicit meaning: Death is treated as though it could hear and respond.
15. Allusion
Definition: Indirectly refers to a known person, story, event, or work.
Example: “He met his Waterloo.”
Implicit meaning: He suffered a decisive defeat.
16. Pun
Definition: Exploits two meanings or similar sounds of a word.
Example: “A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two-tired.”
Implicit meaning: Two-tired plays on too tired.
17. Antithesis
Definition: Places contrasting ideas close together.
Example: “Speech is silver; silence is golden.”
Implicit meaning: Silence can sometimes be more valuable than speaking.
18. Onomatopoeia
Definition: Uses a word whose sound resembles what it describes.
Example: “The bees buzzed.”
Effect: Buzz resembles the sound made by bees.
19. Alliteration
Definition: Repeats initial consonant sounds for effect.
Example: “Wild winds whistle.”
Effect: The repeated sound gives emphasis and rhythm.
Metaphor and metonymy are especially important
For our discussion, I would put metaphor and metonymy at the center because they are not merely decorative.
Metaphor works principally through resemblance:
The ship ploughs the sea.
The movement of a ship through water is understood through the movement of a plough through soil.
Metonymy works principally through association or contiguity:
The White House announced a decision.
The building is associated with the administration occupying it.
So:
Metaphor: A is understood in terms of B.
Metonymy: A stands for B because A is closely associated with B.
What they have in common
Nearly all these figures demonstrate something important: what is meant can be greater than what is explicitly said.
Take:
“He is a lion.”
The explicit literal proposition is false: the man is not biologically a lion. But the receiver immediately searches for another interpretation—perhaps brave, strong, fierce, depending upon context.
Thus we get:
WORDS → inference → implicit/additional meaning
And this is why figures of speech matter beyond literature. They provide particularly clear examples of the general problem we have been examining: human communication cannot be understood simply by reading literal meanings out of words.
Context, previous knowledge, association, and inference allow the receiver to reconstruct what the speaker actually intends.
See also: Metaphor vs. Metonym
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2026-08-24 Mark Park
