Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Hipparchus, Athenian political figure

(Encyclopedia)Hipparchus hĭpärˈkəs [key], c.555–514 b.c., Athenian political figure, son of Pisistratus. After the death of his father, he was closely associated with his brother Hippias, tyrant of Athens, in...

abbreviation

(Encyclopedia)abbreviation, in writing, arbitrary shortening of a word, usually by cutting off letters from the end, as in U.S. and Gen. (General). Contraction serves the same purpose but is understood ...

metonymy

(Encyclopedia)metonymy mĭtŏnˈəmē [key], figure of speech in which an attribute of a thing or something closely related to it is substituted for the thing itself. Thus, “sweat” can mean “hard labor,” an...

antithesis

(Encyclopedia)antithesis ăntĭthˈĭsĭs [key], a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Parallelism of expression serves...

Tory, Geofroy

(Encyclopedia)Tory, Geofroy zhôfrwäˈ tôrēˈ [key], c.1480–1533, Parisian printer, typographer, and author, b. Bourges. After study in Italy, he won distinction as a professor in Paris and became editor to th...

litotes

(Encyclopedia)litotes līˈtətēzˌ [key], figure of speech in which a statement is made by indicating the negative of its opposite, e.g., “not many” meaning “a few.” A form of irony, litotes is meant to e...

synecdoche

(Encyclopedia)synecdoche sĭnĕkˈdəkē [key], figure of speech, a species of metaphor, in which a part of a person or thing is used to designate the whole—thus, “The house was built by 40 hands” for “The ...

hyperbole

(Encyclopedia)hyperbole hīpûrˈbəlē [key], a figure of speech in which exceptional exaggeration is deliberately used for emphasis rather than deception. Andrew Marvell employed hyperbole throughout To His Coy M...

simile

(Encyclopedia)simile sĭmˈəlē [key] [Lat.,=likeness], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which an object is explicitly compared to another object. Robert Burns's poem “A Red Red Rose” contains two straightfo...

irony

(Encyclopedia)irony, figure of speech in which what is stated is not what is meant. The user of irony assumes that his reader or listener understands the concealed meaning of his statement. Perhaps the simplest for...