高级英语修辞总结

Figures of speech in English

1．Simile is a figure of speech in which one thing is likened to(比作) another 明喻比喻词常见的有like, as, as…as…等。

……swept like a fresh wind through the schools…

The children went from adult to adult like buckets in a fire brigade.

…whe n Bryan swept the political arena like a prairie fire. as fast as a hare, as stupid as a goose

2．Metaphor is a an implied simile暗喻

If you are out of the picture, the field would be open. (If you’re no longer involved with her (if you stop dating her) others would be free to compete for her friendship.)

We can batten down and ride it out

The pupils took a leaf out of their teacher’s book.

No one have any idea where it will go, as it meanders or leaps and sparkles or just glows.

3．Metonymy is a figure of speech that has to do with the

substitution of the name of one thing for that of another 借代/转喻

The pen is mightier than the sword.

But I was not one to let my heart rule my head.

He has an eye for beauty/an ear for music/a smooth tongue/a sharp tongue.

I’ve got five Shakespeares.

He is driving a Ford.

4．Synecdoche is a figure of speech which consists in taking a part for the whole or the whole for a part.提喻部分代整体或整体代部分

Are they really the same flesh as yourself?

The poor man without income has six mouths to feed. Great minds think alike.

You are a noble heart.

Grey hair is taken good care of.

Moscow and Washington will hold talks on this issue.

5．Antithesis is the setting of contrasting phrases or statements opposite each other for emphasis对照意义相反或相对的词、短语、句子出现在对称的位置上。

…a world which will lament them a day and forget them

forever.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

…ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

United we stand; divided we fall.

A fall in the pit, a gain in the wit.

Give me liberty, or give me death.

6．Hyperbole is the deliberate use of exaggeration to achieve emphasis 夸张

I haven’t seen you for ages.

The two views are miles apart.

I’m dying o f thirst/ to know the truth.

In the spring of New England I could count one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of twenty-four hours.

7．Personification is a figure of speech that gives human form, character, or sensibility to animals, plants, or abstractions. 拟人

Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh.

The bird was standing gloomily in his cage, glaring at us with his sardonic eyes.

Walls have ears.

The past year witnessed great progress in my oral English.

8．alliteration头韵重复出现开头音相同的单词。Let us go forth to lead the land we love…

fighting for his hearth and home…

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew;

9. T ransferred epithet is a qualifying adjective transferred from a person to a thing. 移就本应该用来描写甲事物的修饰语移来描写乙事物。

There was an amazed silence.

The slightest mention of the decade brings nostalgic recollections to the middle-aged and curious questionings by the young.

The enemy fled in a blind haste.

What a lame excuse you have made.