alliteration

noun [əˈlɪtɚˌeɪʃən]

pronunciation

CMUdict via pipeline/ipa-en.mjs (AH0 L IH1 T ER0 EY2 SH AH0 N → əˈlɪtɚˌeɪʃən); confirm with a phonetician; no frequency figure, open source

Alliteration names a figure of head-sound echo across a word row; anaphora and epiphora are lexeme foils, assonance the vowel foil, rhyme the ending foil.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Definitions

ling. / rhet. / lit. Rhetorical figure: a deliberate head-sound pattern across neighbouring words for rhythm and sonic cohesion. Axis sits at the initial sound. Anaphora and epiphora fasten members with one lexeme. Assonance joins vowels. Accidental letter coincidence is not the same axis.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
hist. lex. Arct 1921 and Brückner 1927: no aliteracja lemma. Webster 1913 keeps ALLITERATION (same letter opens neighbouring words; L. ad + litera) plus ALLITERATIVE / ALLITERATE / ALLITERATOR. Skeat 1910: ALLITERATION (L.); modern invention; alliterate 1816, alliterative 1764.

source
Editorial team; facts: M. Arct 1921 (no Aliteracja); A. Brückner 1927 (no aliteracja); Webster 1913 (ALLITERATION; ALLITERATIVE; ALLITERATE; ALLITERATOR); W. W. Skeat 1910 (ALLITERATION), open source
didact. / rhet. In class, alliteration holds initial-sound rhythm and meets anaphora, epiphora, assonance, rhyme, antithesis, oxymoron, irony, hyperbole, and simile. Borders among initial sound, lexeme echo, and vowel echo need review.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
colloq. Casual talk may dump any clash of initials under this tag. This card keeps one axis: purposeful echoing of the head sound across a word row, foil to anaphora and epiphora, foil to assonance and rhyme, apart from accidental letter coincidence.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Examples

A row such as wild winds whip white waves yields alliteration (shared initial sound); the same today at three openings is already anaphora, not this card.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
The morning drill worked on initial sound; anaphora returned as the opening-lexeme foil, epiphora as the closing foil, assonance as the vowel foil.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Source shelf: Webster ALLITERATION (1913) with foils ALLITERATIVE / ALLITERATE, Skeat ALLITERATION (1910), Arct with no Aliteracja lemma, Brückner with no aliteracja lemma.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
A note that branded every clash of initials as alliteration erased the split between a deliberate row and accidental letter coincidence.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Board labels: alliteration | anaphora | epiphora | assonance | rhyme | clash without a figure, so initial sound stayed apart from lexeme, from vowel, from ending, and from loose coincidence.

source
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Usage

Casual notes may brand any clash of initials as alliteration with no named axis. Seminar work peels layers: deliberate head-sound echo across neighbouring words; anaphora and epiphora as lexeme foils at openings or closings; assonance and rhyme as vowel and ending foils; plus lexicon notes. Webster keeps ALLITERATION on the initial letter. Skeat traces the stem to Latin (ad + litera) as a modern invention. Arct skips Aliteracja. Brückner skips aliteracja. Without those layers only a hollow slogan about letter clash remains.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Open-book record. Webster 1913: ALLITERATION, stress Al*lit`er*a"tion, the same letter opens two or more words next to each other or at short intervals; Latin ad + litera; examples from Milton, Tennyson, and P. Plowman; ALLITERATIVE, ALLITERATE, and ALLITERATOR stand apart. Skeat 1910: ALLITERATION as echo of initial letters (L.); a modern invention from as-if L. *alliterare / ad litteram; alliterate 1816, alliterative 1764. Arct 1921 leaves the Polish lemma blank. Brückner 1927 leaves the Polish lemma blank. Derivation under etymology.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (ALLITERATION; ALLITERATIVE; ALLITERATE; ALLITERATOR); W. W. Skeat 1910 (ALLITERATION); M. Arct 1921 (no lemma); A. Brückner 1927 (no lemma), open source

Scholarly English marks initial-sound repetition across neighbouring words for clarity and rhythm. Careful editors discard worksheets that treat every anaphora as alliteration and discard glosses that never name the initial-sound axis. The alliteration / anaphora / epiphora / assonance border stays debated in seminars. Chronology of the label stays blank until a primary page is cited. Polish counterpart: aliteracja (SGJP present).

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Classrooms revisit initial-sound talk among tropes and set alliteration against anaphora, epiphora, antithesis, oxymoron, irony, euphemism, hyperbole, litotes, simile, metaphor, allegory, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, rhetoric, and semantics. CMUdict keeps alliteration (IPA via pipeline). Polish aliteracja sits in SGJP. Live neighbours include those tropes. Without the initial-sound axis the label collapses.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ALLITERATION); CMUdict (alliteration present); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (aliteracja present), open source

Word forms

Countable noun: singular alliteration / plural alliterations (editorial regular plural; Webster indexes the singular under ALLITERATION). Related forms in Webster: alliterate (v.), alliterative (adj.), alliterator (n.). CMUdict lemma present.

forms in use

przypadek	forma
singular	alliteration
plural	alliterations (editorial regular plural)
related verb (Webster)	alliterate (Webster ALLITERATE)
related adjective (Webster)	alliterative (Webster ALLITERATIVE)

Word forms: Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ALLITERATION; ALLITERATE; ALLITERATIVE; ALLITERATOR); CMUdict (alliteration present) · source

Collocations

literary alliteration

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
alliteration versus anaphora

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
repetition of initial sounds

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
rhetorical alliteration

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
distinguish alliteration from epiphora

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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Synonyms · Antonyms

Synonyms aliteracja (Polish counterpart; SGJP present; check scope at review), initial-sound repetition (loose descriptive neighbour; Webster ALLITERATION; Skeat ALLITERATION; check scope at review), head-sound echo (approximation; Webster ALLITERATION; check scope at review), rhetorical echo at word starts (approximation; Webster ALLITERATION; check scope at review)

source

Editorial team; facts: SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (aliteracja present), open source

Antonyms literal narration without initial-sound repeat (contrast: no shared sound at word starts; check scope at review), anaphora (axis contrast: shared lexeme at openings, not sound at word starts; Webster ANAPHORA Rhet.; not a clean antonym of the label alone), epiphora (axis contrast: shared lexeme at closings, not initial sound; Webster EPIPHORA Rhet.; check at review)

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

Etymology

English alliteration rests on Webster's ALLITERATION card: Latin ad + litera (see Letter), marked for shared initial letters across neighbouring words; sample lines cite Milton, Tennyson, and P. Plowman; the nearby cards are ALLITERATIVE, ALLITERATE, and ALLITERATOR. Skeat 1910 treats ALLITERATION as a modern construct (as-if L. *alliterare / ad litteram) and dates alliterate to 1816, alliterative to 1764. Arct 1921 does not index Aliteracja. Brückner 1927 does not index aliteracja. We avoid copying dictionary wording. Polish counterpart: aliteracja.

source

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (ALLITERATION; ALLITERATIVE; ALLITERATE; ALLITERATOR), open source

also

W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910 (ALLITERATION), open source

also

M. Arct, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921 (no Aliteracja lemma), open source

also

A. Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, Kraków 1927 (no aliteracja lemma), open source

Related words

anaphora , axis foil (shared lexeme at openings, not initial sound); EN pair already live
epiphora , axis foil (shared lexeme at closings, not initial sound); EN pair already live
antithesis , trope neighbour (opposing members); EN pair already live
oxymoron , trope neighbour; EN pair already live
irony , trope neighbour; EN pair already live
hyperbole , foil along the scale axis (overstatement); EN pair already live
litotes , trope neighbour (understatement); EN pair already live
simile , foil along the likeness axis (open pairing with like / as); EN pair already live
metaphor , trope neighbour (transfer); EN pair already live
allegory , foil along the construct axis (image chain); EN pair already live
personification , trope neighbour; EN pair already live
euphemism , trope neighbour (etiquette softening); EN pair already live
metonymy , trope neighbour (contiguity transfer); EN pair already live
synecdoche , trope neighbour (part for whole); EN pair already live
rhetoric , domain of tropes; EN pair already live
semantics , sense and reference neighbour; EN pair already live
aliteracja , Polish counterpart (SGJP present; Webster ALLITERATION)

Related entries

The same entry in Polish: aliteracja

Questions and answers

What does alliteration mean?

It names a figure whose shared sound opens neighbouring words. Anaphora and epiphora fasten a chain with one lexeme. Assonance joins vowels. Loose letter coincidence without a figure does not replace this card.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)

How does alliteration differ from anaphora and epiphora?

Alliteration keeps one sound at the start of successive words. Anaphora (Webster ANAPHORA Rhet.) places a shared lexeme at openings. Epiphora (Webster EPIPHORA Rhet.) places it at closings. The initial-sound axis differs from the lexeme axis; casual speech and school shortcuts blur the labels often.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ALLITERATION; ANAPHORA; EPIPHORA), open source

How does alliteration differ from assonance and rhyme?

Under alliteration the shared sound sits at word starts. Assonance (Webster ASSONANCE) binds vowels. Rhyme binds endings. That is the axis foil: initial sound versus vowel versus ending, not a synonym of the label alone.

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (ALLITERATION; ASSONANCE), open source

Where does the word alliteration come from, and what forms sit with it?

Webster 1913 ties ALLITERATION to Latin ad + litera; ALLITERATE, ALLITERATIVE, ALLITERATOR sit nearby. Skeat 1910: modern invention; alliterate 1816, alliterative 1764. Arct 1921: no lemma. Brückner 1927: no lemma. Forms: alliteration / alliterations (editorial). IPA from CMU: /əˈlɪtɚˌeɪʃən/. Polish pair: aliteracja (SGJP present).

source

Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913; CMUdict (alliteration present); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (aliteracja present), open source

Is alliteration just another word for accidental letter clash?

No. Accidental letter clash can be any coincidence without a figure. Alliteration holds a deliberate head-sound pattern across a word row. Without that axis the label collapses into anaphora talk, epiphora talk, or assonance talk.

source

Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)