| 释义 |
alliteration|əˌlɪtəˈreɪʃən|
[n. of action f. alliterate v.: see -ation.]
1. gen. The commencing of two or more words in close connexion, with the same letter, or rather the same sound.
1656Blount Glossogr., Alliteration, a figure in Rhetorick, repeating and playing on the same letter. 1749Power Pros. Numbers 71 That which some call Alliteration, i.e. beginning several Words with the same Letter, if it be natural, is a real Beauty. 1763Churchill Proph. Famine Poems I. 101 Apt Alliteration's artful aid. 1831Macaulay Johnson 126 Taxation no Tyranny..was..nothing but a jingling alliteration which he ought to have despised. 1871R. F. Weymouth Euph. 4 ‘Delightful to be read, and nothing hurtfull to be regarded; wherein there is small offence by lightnes given to the wise, and lesse occasion of loosenesse profferred to the wanton.’ Lilie's favourite form of alliteration is well marked in this sentence.
2. The commencement of certain accented syllables in a verse with the same consonant or consonantal group, or with different vowel sounds, which constituted the structure of versification in OE. and the Teutonic languages generally. Thus from the beginning of Langland's Piers Ploughman, text C.:
In a somere seyson · whan softe was þe sonne,
Y shop me into shrobbis · as y a shepherde were;
In abit as an ermite · vnholy of werkes,
Ich wente forth in þe worlde · wonders to hure,
And sawe meny cellis · and selcouthe þynges.
1774T. Warton Eng. Poetry (1840) I. Diss. i. 38 The Islandic poets are said to have carried alliteration to the highest pitch of exactness. 1846T. Wright Ess. Mid. Ages I. i. 14 The form of Saxon poetry is alliteration—not rhyme. 1871Earle Philol. Eng. Tong. §626 Alliteration did not necessarily act on the initial letter of the word. |