•
•
•
The formation of a word, as cuckoo or boom, by imitation of a sound made
by or associated with its referent
A word so formed
Rhetoric the use of imitative and naturally suggestive words for rhetorical
effect.
• . a person who is opposed to, struggles against, or
competes with another; opponent; adversary.
• 2. the adversary of the hero or protagonist of a drama or
other literary work: Iago is the antagonist of Othello.
• 3. Physiology. a muscle that acts in opposition to
another.Compare agonist def. 3.
• 4. Dentistry. a tooth in one jaw that articulates during
mastication or occlusion with a tooth in the opposing jaw.
• 5. Pharmacology. a drug that counteracts the effects of
another drug.
• 1. the leading character, hero, or heroine of a
drama or other literary work.
• 2. a proponent for or advocate of a political
cause, social program, etc.
• 3. the leader or principal person in a movement,
cause, etc.
• 4. the first actor in ancient Greek drama, who
played not only the main role, but also other
roles when the main character was
offstage.Compare deuteragonist, tritagonist.
• 5. Physiology. agonist.
• verb (used with object) to show or indicate
beforehand; prefigure: Political upheavals
foreshadowed war.
• Use Foreshadowing in a Sentence
• See images of Foreshadowing
• Search Foreshadowing on the Web
• 1. a device in the narrative of a motion picture, novel, etc., by which
an event or scene taking place before the present time in the
narrative is inserted into the chronological structure of the work.
• 2. an event or scene so inserted.
• 3. Also called flashback hallucinosis. Psychiatry. a. the spontaneous
recurrence of visual hallucinations or other effects of a drug, as LSD,
long after the use of the drug has been discontinued.
• b. recurrent and abnormally vivid recollection of a traumatic
experience, as a battle, sometimes accompanied by hallucinations.
• Use Flash back in a Sentence
• See images of Flash back
• Search Flash back on the Web
• . the commencement of two or more stressed
syllables of a word group either with the same
consonant sound or sound group (consonantal
alliteration), as in from stem to stern, or with a
vowel sound that may differ from syllable to
syllable (vocalic alliteration), as in each to
all.Compare consonance def. 4a.
• 2. the commencement of two or more words of a
word group with the same letter, as in apt
alliteration's artful aid.
• 1. the formation of mental images, figures, or
likenesses of things, or of such images
collectively: the dim imagery of a dream.
• 2. pictorial images.
• 3. the use of rhetorical images.
• 4. figurative description or illustration; rhetorical
images collectively.
• 5. Psychology. mental images collectively, esp.
those produced by the action of imagination.
• 1. identity in sound of some part, esp. the end, of
words or lines of verse.
• 2. a word agreeing with another in terminal
sound: Find is a rhyme for mind and womankind.
• 3. verse or poetry having correspondence in the
terminal sounds of the lines.
• 4. a poem or piece of verse having such
correspondence.
• 5. verse def. 4.
• 1. the attribution of a personal nature or character to
inanimate objects or abstract notions, esp. as a
rhetorical figure.
• 2. the representation of a thing or abstraction in the form
of a person, as in art.
• 3. the person or thing embodying a quality or the like; an
embodiment or incarnation: He is the personification of
tact.
• 4. an imaginary person or creature conceived or figured
to represent a thing or abstraction.
• 5. the act of personifying.
• 6. a character portrayal or representation in a dramatic
or literary work.
• 1. a statement or proposition that seems
self-contradictory or absurd but in reality
expresses a possible truth.
• 2. a self-contradictory and false
proposition.
• 3. any person, thing, or situation exhibiting
an apparently contradictory nature.
• 4. an opinion or statement contrary to
commonly accepted opinion.
• 1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is
applied to something to which it is not literally
applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as
in “A mighty fortress is our God.”Compare mixed
metaphor, simile def. 1.
• 2. something used, or regarded as being used,
to represent something else; emblem; symbol.
• Use metaphor in a Sentence
• See images of metaphor
• Search metaphor on the Web
• 1. a figure of speech in which two unlike
things are explicitly compared, as in “she
is like a rose.”Compare metaphor.
• 2. an instance of such a figure of speech
or a use of words exemplifying it.
• 1. a similarity between like features of two things, on which a
comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a
pump.
• 2. similarity or comparability: I see no analogy between your
problem and mine.
• 3. Biology. an analogous relationship.
• 4. Linguistics. a. the process by which words or phrases are created
or re-formed according to existing patterns in the language, as when
shoon was re-formed as shoes, when -ize is added to nouns like
winter to form verbs, or when a child says foots for feet.
• b. a form resulting from such a process.
• 5. Logic. a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be
similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the
known similarity between the things in other respects.
• 1. obvious and intentional exaggeration.
• 2. an extravagant statement or figure of
speech not intended to be taken literally,
as “to wait an eternity.”