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alliteration - 5 dictionary results

al⋅lit⋅er⋅a⋅tion

  [uh-lit-uh-rey-shuhn]
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–noun
1. 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
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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al·lit·er·a·tion   (ə-lĭt'ə-rā'shən)   
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.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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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.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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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.”

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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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.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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