figure of speech

noun, plural figures of speech. Rhetoric.

1. 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

1. an expression of language, such as simile, metaphor, or personification, by which the usual or literal meaning of a word is not employed