Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Originally meaning "to be yourself and not care about how others view you", the word is now used to indicate an opinion or something that someone agrees with. It is especially common in political slang and discussions and may be used for controversial topics. Sometimes used as a positive antonym for "cringe."
Virtuoso. A virtuoso (from Italian virtuoso, Italian: [virˈtwoːzo] or Italian: [virtuˈoːso]; Late Latin virtuosus; Latin virtus; 'virtue', 'excellence' or 'skill') is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts, music, singing, playing a musical instrument, or ...
relatively – Literally meaning "compared with", some now use relatively to mean "moderately" or "somewhat" (perhaps in the sense of "compared to the average or to the expectation"). AHD4 does not list this usage at all; M-W has apparently blended the two usages into one. Disputed usage: That man was relatively annoying.
Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) [1] is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as oink, meow, roar, and chirp. Onomatopoeia can differ by language: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system.
This is just a specific instance of the word brat, meaning child or offspring. "Chav": see under "Other" Coma: Some falsely believe that the word coma originates from "cessation of motor activity". Although this describes the condition of coma, this is not the true derivation. The word is actually derived from the Greek kōma, meaning deep sleep.
Alliteration. Alliteration is the repetition of syllable -initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels, if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. [1] It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " P eter P iper p icked a p eck of p ickled p eppers," in which the "p" sound is repeated.
Word play or wordplay [1] (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phonetic mix-ups such as spoonerisms, obscure words and meanings, clever rhetorical excursions, oddly ...
Loaded language (also known as loaded terms, strong emotive language, high-inference language, language-persuasive techniques, and rhetorical language) is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations. This type of language is very often made vague to more effectively invoke an emotional response and ...
A text's stasis can be altered by multimodality, especially when several mediums are juxtaposed to create an individualized experience or meaning. For example, an argument that mainly defines a concept is understood as arguing in the stasis of definition; however, it can also be assigned a stasis of value if the way the definition is delivered ...
Pseudoword. A pseudoword is a unit of speech or text that appears to be an actual word in a certain language, while in fact it has no meaning. It is a specific type of nonce word, or even more narrowly a nonsense word, composed of a combination of phonemes which nevertheless conform to the language's phonotactic rules. [1] It is thus a kind of ...