What Is Alliteration?

Ruqayyah Ali
2 min readMay 20, 2024
Photo by Raphael Schaller on Unsplash

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Alliteration and its types.

Alliteration is a language device ubiquitous in literature, yet there are several types that differ in their meanings. Do you know all of them? (Please do excuse the very exaggerated examples.)

Alliteration- The classic. Alliteration is the repeated sound of the first letter across many words.

Time tethered tightly to this tale.

Assonance- Like alliteration but with repeated vowel* sounds.

Opulent oranges are ordered and organised amazingly so over there.

Consonance- Like alliteration but with repeated consonant* sounds.

Novices never knew not to negotiate at night.

Sibilance- The repetition of the ‘s’ sound.

Sneaky snakes slither smoothly across the sand.

Plosive- The repeated sounds of ‘p’ and ‘b’.

Perhaps books shall bring back pockets of broken memories.

Fricative- The repeated sounds of ‘f’, ‘ph’ and ‘v’.

Freckled dolphins flashed frantically, verging on violent, in the sea.

Dental- The repeated sounds of ‘d’ and ‘t’.

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Ruqayyah Ali

Writer | Bookworm | Editor | Polymath | Free Palestine | Writing's your voice, reading's your choice | 'For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease.'~ Qur'an 94:5