Identify the correct figure of speech used in the following statement.
The anxious chair creaked in the waiting room.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Transferred Epithet
A chair cannot feel anxious. The anxiety belongs to the person waiting in the room, and the adjective "anxious" has been transferred to the chair.
| Option | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| (1) Synecdoche | In synecdoche a part stands for the whole (or the whole for a part). Nothing in the sentence stands for something larger or smaller. | The farmer hired more hands for the harvest. |
| (2) Simile | A simile compares two things openly with "like" or "as". The sentence makes no comparison. | Her smile was as bright as the sun. |
| (3) Transferred Epithet (answer) | An epithet is an adjective that describes a quality. In a transferred epithet the adjective is shifted from the person who has the feeling to an object connected with that person. | He spent a sleepless night before the interview. |
| (4) Personification | Personification makes a non-living thing act or feel like a person. Creaking is an ordinary sound for a chair, and the human feeling is carried by a single adjective borrowed from the person who waits, which is the mark of a transferred epithet. | The wind whispered through the trees. |