| No. | Item | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | allegory | story with a second meaning |
| 2. | alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| 3. | allusion | brief reference to something known |
| 4. | anapest | two unstressed, one stressed |
| 5. | anaphora | repetition at line beginnings |
| 6. | antithesis | balanced contrast of ideas |
| 7. | apostrophe | address to absent person or thing |
| 8. | assonance | repetition of vowel sounds |
| 9. | ballad | narrative poem or song |
| 10. | bathos | ludicrous drop from serious to trivial |
| 11. | blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| 12. | breath | pause or life in a line |
| 13. | cacophony | harsh, jarring sound |
| 14. | cadence | rhythmic flow of language |
| 15. | caesura | pause within a line |
| 16. | chant | rhythmic repeated utterance |
| 17. | connotation | suggested meaning beyond literal sense |
| 18. | consonance | repetition of consonant sounds |
| 19. | couplet | pair of successive lines |
| 20. | dactyl | one stressed, two unstressed |
| 21. | diction | choice of words |
| 22. | dream | vision in sleep or imagination |
| 23. | elegy | poem mourning loss or death |
| 24. | ellipsis | omission of words |
| 25. | end rhyme | rhyme at line endings |
| 26. | enjambment | sentence continuing past line break |
| 27. | epistrophe | repetition at line endings |
| 28. | epithet | descriptive name or phrase |
| 29. | euphony | pleasant, harmonious sound |
| 30. | eye rhyme | spelling rhyme, not sound rhyme |
| 31. | feminine rhyme | rhyme on unstressed ending syllables |
| 32. | foot | basic metrical unit |
| 33. | free verse | poetry without regular meter |
| 34. | grace | elegance or divine favor |
| 35. | haiku | very short Japanese-style poem |
| 36. | hexameter | line of six feet |
| 37. | hyperbole | deliberate exaggeration for effect |
| 38. | iamb | unstressed then stressed syllable pair |
| 39. | image | word-picture appealing to senses |
| 40. | imagery | language creating vivid mental pictures |
| 41. | incantation | chant-like formulaic wording |
| 42. | internal rhyme | rhyme within a line |
| 43. | inversion | reversed normal word order |
| 44. | irony | contrast between expectation and reality |
| 45. | juxtaposition | placing things side by side |
| 46. | kenning | compound figurative expression |
| 47. | lilt | light, swinging rhythm |
| 48. | line | single row of poetic text |
| 49. | litotes | understatement using negation |
| 50. | lyric | short poem expressing feeling |
| 51. | masculine rhyme | rhyme on stressed syllables |
| 52. | metaphor | implied comparison without like or as |
| 53. | meter | regular pattern of stressed syllables |
| 54. | metonymy | substitution by close association |
| 55. | monorhyme | same rhyme throughout lines |
| 56. | mood | feeling created for readers |
| 57. | motif | recurring element or idea |
| 58. | music | melodic quality of language |
| 59. | neologism | newly coined word or phrase |
| 60. | octave | eight-line stanza or section |
| 61. | ode | formal poem of praise |
| 62. | onomatopoeia | word imitating a sound |
| 63. | oxymoron | two contradictory terms together |
| 64. | paradox | seeming contradiction with truth |
| 65. | parallelism | similar grammatical patterning |
| 66. | pathos | quality evoking pity or sadness |
| 67. | pentameter | line of five feet |
| 68. | persona | assumed voice or character |
| 69. | personification | human traits given to nonhuman things |
| 70. | prosody | patterns of rhythm and sound |
| 71. | pun | play on multiple meanings |
| 72. | quantitative | based on syllable length |
| 73. | quatrain | stanza of four lines |
| 74. | refrain | repeated line or phrase |
| 75. | register | level or style of language |
| 76. | repetition | deliberate reuse of words or sounds |
| 77. | rhyme | matching end sounds in words |
| 78. | rhythm | pattern of beats in language |
| 79. | scansion | marking meter in lines |
| 80. | simile | comparison using like or as |
| 81. | sonnet | fourteen-line poem with set form |
| 82. | speaker | the poem’s speaking voice |
| 83. | spondee | two stressed syllables together |
| 84. | stanza | group of lines in a poem |
| 85. | stress | emphasis on a syllable |
| 86. | symbol | thing representing something else |
| 87. | tempo | speed of rhythmic movement |
| 88. | tercet | stanza of three lines |
| 89. | tetrameter | line of four feet |
| 90. | theme | central idea or message |
| 91. | tone | writer’s attitude in language |
| 92. | trimeter | line of three feet |
| 93. | trochee | stressed then unstressed syllable pair |
| 94. | understatement | deliberate downplaying for effect |
| 95. | vernacular | everyday spoken language |
| 96. | verse | poetry or a line of poetry |
| 97. | voice | distinctive style or perspective |
| 98. | volta | turn in thought or argument |
| 99. | wonder | awe or amazed curiosity |
| 100. | yearning | deep longing or desire |