Alliteration

Alliteration is a literary or rhetorical stylistic device that consists in repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession. An example is the Mother Goose tongue-twister, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers …" Assonance and consonance are types of alliteration. In poetry, alliteration may also refer to repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to the poem's meter, are stressed as... more

Alliteration is a literary or rhetorical stylistic device that consists in repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession. An example is the Mother Goose tongue-twister, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers …" Assonance and consonance are types of alliteration. In poetry, alliteration may also refer to repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to the poem's meter, are stressed as if they occurred at the beginning of a word, as in James Thomson's verse "Come…dragging the lazy languid Line along" . Alliteration is usually distinguished from the mere repetition of the same sound in positions other than the beginning of each word — whether a consonant, as in "some mammals are clammy" (consonance) or a vowel, as in "yellow wedding bells" (assonance); but the term it is sometimes used in these broader senses. Alliteration may also include the use of different consonants with similar properties (labials, dentals, etc.) or... less