Word.ws English Dictionary

figures of speech

figures of speech is the plural of figure of speech.

Meaning of figure of speech

Noun

figure of speech (plural figures of speech)

  1. (rhetoric, stylistic) A word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use to produce a rhetorical effect.
    Synonyms:
    turn of phrase
  2. (broadly) A turn of phrase that is not intended to be interpreted literally, but is used solely as a rhetorical device for the purpose of facilitating effective and nuanced communication.
    • I hope you didn't take it the wrong way, that was a figure of speech.

Questions about figures of speech

What is figures of speech the plural of?
Figures of speech is the plural of figure of speech.

Words near figures of speech in the dictionary

  1. figures
  2. figures away
  3. figures of eight
  4. figures of fun
  5. figures of merit
  6. figures of speech
  7. figures on
  8. figures out
  9. figures up
  10. figuresome
  11. figurest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: figures of speech (page history and authors); figure of speech (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “figures of speech.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/figures_of_speech. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.