AP Literature Terms 81-100
1. Zeugma: a figure of speech in which a word is used to modify or govern two or more words
although appropriate to only one of them or making a different sense with each
2. Voice: Style in which words are represented. Your voice is what gives your writing personality,
flavor and style.
3. Vernacular: The everyday or common language of a geographic area or the native language of
commoners in a country
4. Verisimilitude: The quality of the text that reflects the truth of actual experience; the
appearance of being true or real
5. Trope: An artful variation from the expected modes of expression of thoughts and ideas; a word,
phrase, or image used in a new and different way in order to create an artistic effect
6. Tautology: A group of words that merely repeats the meaning already conveyed; needless
repetition of an idea using different words.
7. Stream of Consciousness: A literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a
character as they occur.
8. Retrospective: Mindful of the past; contemplative of past situations, events, etc. Many
narratives are retrospective.
9. Ballad Meter: a four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet
in lines two and four.
10. Blank Verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter.
11. Cacophony: a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones.
12. Caesura: a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the
line, and often greater than the normal pause.
13. End-stopped: a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a
semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines.
14. Enjambment: the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of
poetry to the next.
15. Euphony: a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. Its opposite is
cacophony.
16. Eye Rhyme: rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the
pronunciation.
17. Feminine Rhyme: a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as “waken” and
“forsaken” and “audition” and “rendition.” Feminine rhyme is sometimes called double rhyme.
18. Heroic Couplet: two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought
usually completed in the two-line unit.
19. Masculine Rhyme: rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhymewords. Examples include “keep” and “sleep,” “glow” and “no,” and “spell” and “impel.
20. Motif: A usually recurring salient thematic element, especially a dominant idea or central theme.