Literary Terms Word Search for Devices, Story Elements and Poetry

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Literary Terms Word Search

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0 of 16 words found

UGTHEMEWTLFCDEA

BFSNGSRHYMEOHAU

PNIFOHWTJGANBAO

YKNNFNGSAELFDLC

HKLCLIMAXOLLALE

TISTANZANIEIWID

RMCTSATIREGCWTN

AANHHEQRLYOTEEA

GGFABIMOHRRTRRO

EETIANSNSMYDWAW

DRNKCSYYPDEOTTR

YYNUKHMSESNAHIL

NHYPERBOLEARSOY

TWCYKTOGSESVSNA

NRIWTNLSSONNETA

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HyperboleHYPERBOLE
ImageryIMAGERY
IronyIRONY
SymbolSYMBOL
AlliterationALLITERATION
RhymeRHYME
StanzaSTANZA
SonnetSONNET
HaikuHAIKU
ConflictCONFLICT
ClimaxCLIMAX
ThemeTHEME
FlashbackFLASHBACK
TragedyTRAGEDY
SatireSATIRE
AllegoryALLEGORY

16 of 24 words from the Literary Terms list.

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Answer key: Literary Terms Word Search

UGTHEMEWTLFCDEA

BFSNGSRHYMEOHAU

PNIFOHWTJGANBAO

YKNNFNGSAELFDLC

HKLCLIMAXOLLALE

TISTANZANIEIWID

RMCTSATIREGCWTN

AANHHEQRLYOTEEA

GGFABIMOHRRTRRO

EETIANSNSMYDWAW

DRNKCSYYPDEOTTR

YYNUKHMSESNAHIL

NHYPERBOLEARSOY

TWCYKTOGSESVSNA

NRIWTNLSSONNETA

HYPERBOLE, IMAGERY, IRONY, SYMBOL, ALLITERATION, RHYME, STANZA, SONNET, HAIKU, CONFLICT, CLIMAX, THEME, FLASHBACK, TRAGEDY, SATIRE, ALLEGORY

Next step Build a puzzle from the terms of your own novel unit

All 188 words

Figurative Language 29

Adage An old saying that people have come to accept as true through long use.
Allusion "He has the strength of Hercules": a passing reference to a well-known story.
Analogy A comparison that explains one thing by how it resembles another.
Aphorism A brief, sharply worded statement of a truth or opinion.
Cliche "At the end of the day": a phrase used so often that it has gone stale.
Connotation The feelings a word carries beyond its plain meaning, as home suggests warmth.
Denotation The direct dictionary meaning of a word, with no added feeling.
Epithet "The Great" in Alexander the Great: a describing tag joined to a name.
Euphemism "Passed away" for died: a mild phrase used in place of a blunt one.
Figurative Not meant word for word. It describes language that uses figures of speech.
Hyperbole "This bag weighs a ton": exaggeration used for effect.
Idiom "Under the weather": a phrase whose meaning its separate words do not give.
Imagery Vivid wording that lets a reader see, hear, smell, taste or feel what is described.
Irony "Lovely weather" said in a storm: words that mean the opposite of what they say.

Show all 188 words (174 more)

Figurative Language, continued

Kenning "Storm of swords" for battle: a compound name used in Old English and Old Norse poetry.
Literal Meaning exactly what the words say, with nothing exaggerated or compared.
Litotes "Not bad at all": praise made by denying the opposite.
Metaphor "Time is a thief": it says one thing is another to compare them.
Metonymy "The crown" for a king or queen: naming a thing by something closely linked to it.
Oxymoron "Jumbo shrimp": two words that seem to cancel each other, set side by side.
Paradox "Less is more": a statement that seems to contradict itself yet may be true.
Personify "The wind whispered": to give human traits to a thing or an idea.
Proverb "A stitch in time saves nine": a short, widely used saying that states a basic truth.
Pun A play on words that sound alike or have two meanings.
Sarcasm A cutting remark that says one thing and means the opposite, meant to mock.
Simile "Quiet as a mouse": a comparison made with like or as.
Symbol A thing that stands for an idea, as a dove stands for peace.
Synecdoche "All hands on deck": a part named to stand for the whole.
Understatement "It is a bit chilly" in a blizzard: saying less than you mean, for effect.

Rhyme and Rhythm 25

Accent The emphasis that falls on one syllable of a word or one word in a line.
Alliteration "Seven silver swans": the same sound at the start of nearby words.
Anaphora Starting line after line, or sentence after sentence, with the same words.
Assonance "Deep green sea": the same vowel sound repeated in nearby words.
Beat The pattern of stresses that gives a line of verse its pulse.
Blank verse Unrhymed lines in a regular meter, most often iambic pentameter.
Cacophony Harsh, clashing sounds chosen on purpose for effect.
Cadence The balanced, rhythmic flow of lines as they are read aloud.
Caesura A pause in the middle of a line of poetry.
Consonance "Pitter patter": a consonant sound repeated inside or at the ends of nearby words.
Enjambment A sentence that runs past the end of one line into the next with no pause.
Euphony Pleasant, smooth sound in the choice of words.
Foot One unit of a line's meter, such as a single iamb.
Free verse Poetry with no fixed meter and, usually, no rhyme.
Iamb da-DUM: a weak syllable then a strong one, as in the word below.
Meter The measured pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Onomatopoeia Buzz, hiss, thud: a word that imitates the sound it names.
Refrain A line or group of lines repeated through a song or poem, often after each stanza.
Repetition Using the same word or phrase again and again for effect.
Rhyme Moon and June: matching sounds at the ends of words or lines.
Rhythm The pattern of strong and weak beats that runs through a line.
Scansion Marking the stressed and unstressed syllables of a line to find its meter.
Sibilance "The snake slid past": hissing s and sh sounds in a row.
Stress The extra force given to one syllable, like the first in GAR-den.
Trochee DUM-da: a strong syllable then a weak one, as in the word garden.

Poems and Stanzas 26

Acrostic A poem in which the first letters of the lines spell a word or name.
Ballad A poem that tells a story in simple stanzas, often made to be sung.
Canto One of the main sections of a long poem.
Cinquain A stanza or poem of five lines.
Couplet Two lines in a row, usually rhyming and of the same length.
Elegy A poem of mourning for someone who has died.
Epic A long story poem in grand language about the deeds of a legendary hero.
Epigram A short, witty poem or saying that makes a single point.
Epitaph A short inscription in memory of a person, as on a tombstone.
Haiku A Japanese form of three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables, often on nature.
Limerick A funny five-line poem rhyming aabba.
Lyric A short, songlike poem that gives the speaker's own thoughts and feelings.
Octave A group of eight lines, especially the first eight of a Petrarchan sonnet.
Ode A formal poem that praises its subject, often speaking straight to it: a season, an urn, a bird.
Pentameter A line of five metrical feet.
Poem A piece of writing in lines, chosen for sound and feeling as well as sense.
Poet A person who writes verse.
Quatrain A stanza of four lines.
Sestet A group of six lines, especially the last six of a Petrarchan sonnet.
Sestina Six six-line stanzas and a three-line close, all reusing the same six end words.
Sonnet A 14-line poem, often in iambic pentameter, with a set rhyme scheme.
Stanza A group of lines set apart in a poem, like a paragraph in prose.
Tanka A Japanese poem of five units in a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. The name means short poem.
Tercet A group of three lines of poetry.
Verse A single line of poetry; also, writing that has meter.
Villanelle A 19-line poem of five tercets and a quatrain, built on two repeating lines.

Story Elements 28

Antagonist The one who stands against the main character.
Backstory What happened to a character before the story begins.
Character A person, animal or being who takes part in a story.
Cliffhanger A chapter ending that leaves the reader desperate to know what comes next.
Climax The turning point of a story, its moment of greatest intensity.
Conflict The struggle between people or forces that drives a story.
Crisis The point at which a story's struggle is at its tightest and must be settled.
Denouement The final working out of a story after the climax. The word is French for an untying.
Dramatic irony The audience knows what a character does not, as when we alone can see the trap.
Episode One event in the chain of events that makes up a story.
Exposition The opening background a reader needs: who, where and when.
Falling action The events of a story that follow the climax.
Flashback A scene that breaks into the story to show an earlier event.
Foil A character whose contrast with another makes that other's traits stand out.
Foreshadowing Early hints about what will happen later in a story.
Hero The chief figure of a story, often brave and admired.
Moral The lesson a fable or story teaches.
Motive The wish or need that pushes a character to act.
Narrator The one who tells the story.
Plot The chain of linked events that makes up a story.
Protagonist The main character of a story.
Resolution The part of a story in which the tangles are worked out.
Rising action The events of a story that build toward the climax.
Setting The time and place in which a story happens.
Suspense The excited worry a reader feels while waiting to learn what happens.
Theme The central idea a work keeps returning to, such as courage or loss.
Twist A sudden turn in a story that the reader did not expect.
Villain The wicked figure who works against the one the reader cheers for.

Voice and Style 23

Ambiguity Wording that can fairly be read in more than one way.
Atmosphere The dominant feeling that hangs over a work or a scene.
Dialect A regional variety of a language, shown in a story's spelling and word choice.
Dialogue The words that characters say to one another.
Diction An author's choice of words.
First person "I opened the door": the narrator is in the story and says I.
Inversion "Into the night rode the king": normal word order turned around.
Mood The feeling a piece of writing stirs in its reader: eerie, joyful, tense.
Nuance A slight shade of difference in meaning or feeling.
Omniscient All-knowing: a narrator who can see into every character's mind.
Parallelism "Easy come, easy go": matching grammar in phrases set side by side.
Pathos The quality in a work that stirs pity or sorrow. The word is Greek for suffering.
Persona The character whose voice an author takes on to tell a work.
Perspective The outlook from which a narrator or character sees events.
Point of view The position a story is told from, such as I or he and she.
Speaker The imagined voice that says the words of a poem, not always the poet.
Style An author's own way with words, sentences and detail.
Subtext The unspoken meaning under what the characters say.
Syntax The way words are arranged into sentences.
Third person "She opened the door": the narrator stands outside the story.
Tone The manner of expression a writer takes toward a subject: playful, angry, solemn.
Voice The distinctive way an author or a narrator sounds on the page.
Wit Clever, playful humor in the way something is said.

Drama Terms 26

Act One of the main divisions of a play.
Aside A line spoken to the audience that the other characters are not supposed to hear.
Cast All the actors in a play.
Catharsis The release of pity and fear an audience feels at the end of a tragedy.
Chorus In Greek plays, a group that sings and comments on the action.
Comedy A light, often funny play that usually ends happily.
Comic relief A funny moment that eases the strain in a serious work.
Costume The clothes an actor wears to become a character.
Cue A word or action that signals an actor to speak or enter.
Curtain The drape that opens and closes between the actors and the audience.
Drama A story written to be performed by actors.
Epilogue A short closing section after the main story has ended.
Farce A light play of wildly unlikely situations and slapstick.
Hubris Overbearing pride. The word is Greek.
Interlude A short piece performed between the parts of a play.
Monologue A long speech by one character.
Playwright A person who writes plays.
Prologue An introduction that comes before the first part of a play or novel.
Prop An object, other than costumes and scenery, that an actor handles in a play.
Role The part an actor plays.
Scene A part of an act in a play: the action stays in one place and time until it ends.
Script The written text of a play.
Soliloquy A speech in which a character, alone, thinks aloud for the audience.
Stage The raised platform on which a play is performed.
Tragedy A serious play in which the main character is brought to ruin.
Tragic flaw The weakness in a tragedy's main character that brings about the downfall.

Forms and Traditions 31

Allegory A story in which characters and events stand for abstract ideas.
Anecdote A brief true story about one moment, told to amuse or to make a point.
Antihero A main character who lacks the usual heroic qualities, such as courage.
Archetype An original pattern that later works copy.
Bildungsroman A novel about a young person's growth in mind and character. The word is German.
Canon The body of works widely accepted as the most important in a field.
Dystopia An imagined place where life is extremely bad, or a work that describes one.
Epistolary Told through letters, as some novels are.
Fable A short tale with a moral, often told with animals that talk.
Frame story A narrative that contains one or more other narratives inside it.
Genre A category of literature marked by its form, style or content.
Gothic A style of fiction full of gloom, mystery and desolate places.
Legend An old tale passed down as if true, often about a hero, that nobody can prove.
Memoir An author's account of his or her own experiences.
Motif An image or idea that recurs through a work.
Myth A traditional, ancient story of gods and heroes that explains the world.
Narrative A story, or the telling of one.
Novella A short novel.
Parable A short tale about everyday people that teaches a lesson about right and wrong.
Parody A comic imitation of another work or of an author's style.
Pastoral A work that pictures country life as simple and peaceful.
Prose Ordinary writing in sentences and paragraphs, without meter.
Realism Showing life as it actually is, without making it prettier or grander.
Saga A long prose tale of heroes and families, first written in medieval Iceland.
Satire Writing that mocks human foolishness through irony and wit.
Sequel A work that continues the story of an earlier one.
Tragicomedy A play or novel that mixes sad and funny elements.
Trilogy A set of three related works.
Trope A plot turn or device that shows up again and again in one kind of story.
Utopia An ideally perfect place. The name comes from a book by Sir Thomas More.
Vignette A brief piece of writing that paints one moment or mood and has no full plot.

How this list was compiled: 188 literary terms chosen and defined for this site, in seven themed lists plus a key terms list, a list of short terms and a list of long terms. Every spelling and the literary sense behind every clue was looked up in the American Heritage Dictionary, https://www.ahdictionary.com/, on 2026-09-19; its definitions are behind the line counts in the clues for forms such as Sonnet, Haiku and Villanelle, and its etymologies behind the clues for Denouement, Bildungsroman, Pathos, Hubris, Utopia and Saga. Tanka, which the dictionary enters only as the name of a people, follows English Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/, read the same day. The example phrases in the clues are our own or common sayings; Storm of swords, for Kenning, is the dictionary's example. Licence: own work

How it works

This literary terms word search holds 188 terms in 10 lists for middle and high school, each with a clue. The first puzzle hides 16 of them, such as Irony, Climax and Sonnet, across and down in a 15 by 15 grid.

Read the full guide

A review sheet for the week before a literature test

For a literature word search that tests meanings, tick Show clues, not words. The sheet then prints "Quiet as a mouse": a comparison made with like or as, and pupils hunt for Simile. In Figurative Language, 18 of the 29 clues open with an example like that.

A list for each unit: novel, poetry, play

Under Start from a list, each list fits a unit. Story Elements has 28 terms for a novel study, from Exposition to Denouement. Poems and Stanzas and Rhyme and Rhythm cover poetry, and Drama Terms a play. Voice and Style and Forms and Traditions reach high school terms: Omniscient, Subtext, Bildungsroman.

Personification has 15 letters and these lists stop at 14, so Personify takes its place, with "The wind whispered" as its clue.
For a shorter literary word search, pick Short Literary Terms and take words off the list until 8 are left.
Point of view is hidden as POINTOFVIEW, like 10 more two- and three-word entries. Allusion's clue names Hercules: next, the Greek mythology word search.

Questions and answers

What is the difference between a metaphor and a simile?

A simile compares two unlike things with like or as: quiet as a mouse. A metaphor leaves the comparing word out and says one thing is another: time is a thief. Both are in Figurative Language, beside Hyperbole, Idiom and Oxymoron.

What are the five parts of a plot?

Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution, which is also called the denouement. The five come from Freytag's pyramid, as Wikipedia's Plot article sets it out, read September 2026. All six terms are in Story Elements, each with a one-line meaning.

Which literary terms are on the list?

The 188 terms cover figurative language, sound, poetic forms, story elements, voice and style, drama, and forms such as Satire and Allegory. No author or book character is a list word. Every term was checked in the American Heritage Dictionary, September 2026; Tanka follows Wikipedia.

All 188 words

Figurative Language 29

Figurative Language, continued

Rhyme and Rhythm 25

Poems and Stanzas 26

Story Elements 28

Voice and Style 23

Drama Terms 26

Forms and Traditions 31

How it works

A review sheet for the week before a literature test

A list for each unit: novel, poetry, play

Questions and answers

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