alliteration

(ə-lĭt'ə-rā'shən)

[From AD- + Latin littera, letter.]

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alliteration (also known as ‘head rhyme’ or ‘initial rhyme’), the repetition of the same sounds—usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables—in any sequence of neighbouring words: ‘Landscape‐lover, lord of language’ (Tennyson). Now an optional and incidental decorative effect in verse or prose, it was once a required element in the poetry of Germanic languages (including Old English and Old Norse) and in Celtic verse (where alliterated sounds could regularly be placed in positions other than the beginning of a word or syllable). Such poetry, in which alliteration rather than rhyme is the chief principle of repetition, is known as alliterative verse; its rules also allow a vowel sound to alliterate with any other vowel. See also alliterative metre, alliterative revival, assonance, consonance.

alliteration, the literary device in which two or more words in close connection begin with the same letter (see ASSONANCE). It was not a common device of Greek poetry, but is a feature in Latin saturnian verse (see METRE, LATIN I), and was adopted thence by later Roman poets including Ennius and Virgil, as when Ennius writes:

fraxinu' frangitur atque abies consternitur alta.
pinus proceras pervortunt.

(‘The ash tree is shattered and the lofty fir laid low. They overturn the tall pines.’)

o Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti.

(‘O Titus Tatius, such great things you brought upon yourself, arrogant ruler.’)

Alliteration occurs in German as an adornment of rhetorical or poetic speech, e.g.

…sie kann nicht vor euch her wie sonst
Die Fahne tragen—schwere Bande fesseln sie,
Doch frei aus ihrem Kerker schwingt die Seele
Sich auf den Flügeln ihres Kriegsgesangs.
Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans.

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 repetition of the consonant sounds within words or within lines.

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• Devices, Techniques, and Elements - alliteration: repetition of initial sound in two or more consecutive words
• Rhetoric and Figures of Speech - alliteration: succession of words or stressed syllables of word group beginning with same consonant sound or with same letter

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - alliteration, bogstavrim

Nederlands (Dutch)
alliteratie (stafrijm)

Français (French)
n. - allitération

Deutsch (German)
n. - Stabreim, Alliteration

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (γραμμ.) παρήχηση

Italiano (Italian)
allitterazione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - aliteração (f)

Русский (Russian)
аллитерация

Español (Spanish)
n. - aliteración

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - allitteration

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
头韵

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 頭韻

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 두운[법]

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 頭韻

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تكرير حرف او اكثر في بدايه لفظتين متجاورتين‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮היקרות של אותה אות או אותו צליל בהתחלת מלים קרובות זו לזו, שוויון צלילים, אליטרציה‬

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