Select the correct figure of speech used in the following sentence.
The rustling of the leaves and the gurgling of the streams are the dulcet sounds of nature.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia:
- Onomatopoeia is the use of words whose sound imitates the sound they describe (buzz, hiss, splash).
- This sentence: "rustling" imitates the soft sound of moving leaves, and "gurgling" imitates the sound of water flowing over stones.
Example: The bees buzzed among the flowers.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: Anaphora — Incorrect. Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or lines; no opening word is repeated here.
Example: Every day, every night, every hour, she thought of home.
Option 3: Enjambment — Incorrect. Enjambment is the running on of a sentence from one line of poetry into the next without a pause at the end of the line; the given sentence is prose, not verse.
Option 4: Synecdoche — Incorrect. Synecdoche uses a part to stand for the whole, or the whole for a part; the sentence has no such substitution. In "All hands on deck", for instance, "hands" stands for sailors.
Example: The farmer hired ten extra hands for the harvest.
Contrast: onomatopoeia imitates a sound, anaphora repeats the opening words, enjambment runs one line of verse into the next, and synecdoche uses a part for the whole.