any expressive use of language, as a metaphor, simile, personification, or antithesis, in which words are used in other than their literal sense, or in other than their ordinary locutions, in order to suggest a picture or image or for other special effect. Compare trope ( def. 1 ) .

noun

adumbration , allegory , alliteration , allusion , analogue , analogy , anaphora , anticlimax , antistrophe , antithesis , aposiopesis , apostrophe , asyndeton , bathos , communication that is not meant literally; stylistic device , comparison , conceit , device , echoism , ellipsis , euphemism , euphuism , exaggeration , expression , flourish , flower , hyperbole , image , imagery , irony , litotes , malapropism , manner of speaking , metaphor , metonymy , onomatopoeia , ornament , oxymoron , parable , paradox , parallel , personification , proteron , rhetoric , sarcasm , satire , simile , synecdoche , trope , tropology , turn of phrase , understatement , way of speaking