alliteration - Definitions from Dictionary.com

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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

al·lit·er·a·tion

Audio Help [uh-lit-uh-rey-shuh

n] Pronunciation Key

–noun

the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group (consonantal alliteration), as in from stem to stern, or with a vowel sound that may differ from syllable to syllable (vocalic alliteration), as in each to all. Compare consonance (def. 4a).

2.	the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter, as in apt alliteration's artful aid.

[Origin: 1650–60; < ML alliterātiōn-, s. of alliterātiō, equiv. to al- al- + literātiō, modeled after obliterātiō obliteration but intended to convey a deriv. of littera letter

]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

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alliteration

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

al·lit·er·a·tion Audio Help (ə-lĭt'ə-rā'shən) Pronunciation Key
n. The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables, as in "on scrolls of silver snowy sentences" (Hart Crane). Modern alliteration is predominantly consonantal; certain literary traditions, such as Old English verse, also alliterate using vowel sounds.

[From ad- + Latin littera, letter.]

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Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
alliteration

1656, "to begin with the same letter," from Mod.L. alliterationem (nom. alliteratio) from alliteratus, pp. of alliterare, from L. ad- "to" + litera "letter." Formed on model of obliteration, etc.

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

alliteration
noun
use of the same consonant at the beginning of each stressed syllable in a line of verse; "around the rock the ragged rascal ran"

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source - Share This
alliteration [(uh-lit-uh-ray-shuhn)]

The repetition of the beginning sounds of words, as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” “long-lived,” “short shrift,” and “the fickle finger of fate.”

[Chapter:] Conventions of Written English

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Alliteration

Al*lit`er*a"tion\, n. [L. ad + litera letter. See Letter.] The repetition of the same letter at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals; as in the following lines:

Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved His vastness. --Milton.

Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. --Tennyson.

Note: The recurrence of the same letter in accented parts of words is also called alliteration. Anglo-Saxon poetry is characterized by alliterative meter of this sort. Later poets also employed it.

In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne, I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were. --P. Plowman.

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