Home › Glossary › Letter T

Two-word figure

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A rhetorical or poetic device built around a concise two-word phrase

Detailed Definition
A two-word figure is a concise rhetorical or poetic device composed of exactly two words that together create a striking image, paradox, or conceptual twist—such as “bitter sweet” or “living dead”—leveraging juxtaposition, oxymoron, or compound metaphor to compress complex meaning into minimal linguistic space.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Star-crossed” as a compact metaphor for doomed fate; “Heart-break” compressing emotional devastation into two words; “Time-worn” evoking age and decay succinctly; “Sky-high” suggesting extreme height or ambition in two syllables
Additional Notes
Two-word figure|A specific figure of speech or literary device that is achieved through the combination of only two words (e.g., oxymoron like "deafening silence" or hendiadys like "nice and warm"), creating a concise impact.
Also Known As
Two-word image Double-word figure Binary expression Kenning Kenning compound
Skip to main content