Alliteration is a powerful literary device in literature, marketing, and everyday speech. But what is alliteration exactly? Simply put, it is the repetition of initial consonant sounds—a technique that relies on repeated sounds—in closely placed words, making phrases more rhythmic and memorable. Let’s break it down with alliteration examples, definitions, and practical uses.
Applying Alliteration
What is the meaning of alliteration?
To define alliteration, we explore its meaning and examples across different contexts, including poetry, literature, marketing, and pop culture. Additionally, we will analyze alliteration in a sentence, brand names, and famous alliteration examples from film and literature.
We will also discover how common alliteration words are in cinema -- especially in movie titles and character names, through character dialogue. We will study a scene from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to show alliteration meaning at work. Let's break it down with alliteration examples, definitions, and practical uses.
ALLITERATION DEFINITION
What is Alliteration?
Alliteration is a literary technique derived from Latin, meaning ‘letters of the alphabet.’ It occurs when two or more words are linked that share the same first consonant sound, such as ‘fish fry.’ This technique, also called head rhyme, enhances rhythm and memorability in both poetry and prose.
Some famous examples of alliteration sentences include:
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
- Sally sells seashells by the sea shore.
- How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
- “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation,” Martin Luther King.
The sound, not the letter, is the most important element of alliteration meaning, as not all adjacent words sharing first consonants amount to alliteration. ‘Kitty cat’ and ‘fish phobia’ are considered alliteration examples, but not “thirty typists,” because ‘th’ and ‘ty’ don’t sound the same.
Other Common Alliteration Words:
- Cream of the crop
- French fry
- Hit the hay
- Pecan pie
- Super-Size
- Tough talk
- Trick or treat
Alliteration Definition and Examples
Alliteration In Literature: Definition, Meaning, And Examples
Alliteration vs. consonance & assonance
While alliteration focuses on initial consonant sounds, it differs from assonance (the repetition of sounds involving vowels) and consonance (the repetition of consonant sounds in any part of a word). In these definitions, adjacent words containing vowel sounds are considered ‘assonance.’
Check out this video on how alliteration and assonance enhance rhythm, meaning, and emotion in writing.
Alliteration meaning: Designating distinctions
The narrator describes the difference between alliteration and assonance in the video and gives examples of each. It should be stressed that assonance doesn’t have to be at the beginning of a word– it can be in the middle or end. Other examples include:
- Accidental acceptance
- Four door
- Imaginative improvisation
- Open ocean
- Loco taco
Examples of Alliteration
Consonance vs. alliteration
Consonance, meanwhile, is the other side of the assonance coin. This term refers to the repetition of consonant sounds. Like assonance, consonance is only sometimes alliteration. The consonants can be at the beginning of words, but don’t have to be.
Here are some consonance examples:
- Double duty
- Tug rig
- Funnel sonnets anew
- Party planner
- Assess lessons
Note how the consonants can be repeated anywhere within the words. As such, it can call less attention to itself than alliteration.
Examples Of Alliteration In A Sentence
Using alliteration
Because alliteration is catchy and easy to remember, it is often used in songs, business, and advertising. Some alliteration examples in song lyrics include:
- “My mind makes marvelous moves, masses / Marvel and move, many mock what I've mastered,” Blackalicious -- Alphabet Aerobics
- “Little old lady got mutilated late last night.” -- Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London
- “Whisper words of wisdom …” -- The Beatles - Let It Be
- “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” -- Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
Check out more alliteration examples in this video.
An example of alliteration: Hip hop hooks
Examples Of Alliteration In Branding
The power of alliteration in branding
Alliteration makes brand names catchy and easy to remember: a catchy, rhythmic phrase or title is easy to remember, especially if set to music. Alliterative sounds set to music easily get stuck in people’s heads, which is exactly what both pop music and advertising and marketing are trying to achieve. Here are some famous brands with alliterative names.
Alliteration words: Business Brands
These are just a few of many famous brands that alliterate. Others include:
- American Apparel
- Bed, Bath & Beyond
- Kit Kat
- Lululemon
- Muscle Milk
- Planter’s Peanuts
- Tater-Tots
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Alliteration Examples
Alliteration in literature and pop culture
Writers frequently employ alliteration in literature for emphasis. Some notable character names featuring alliteration include: genres, from poetry and drama to novels and children’s books. Depending on the author’s intent, alliteration may function to emphasize a certain section of text; create an aesthetic linguistic effect; evoke musical and rhythmic sounds; or make a poem or speech easier to remember and recite.
Alliteration examples in poetry include:
- “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes . . .” Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
- “Burning bright,” and “frame thy fearful symmetry,” William Blake, Tyger
- “The fair breeze blow, the white foam flew / The furrow followed free,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, —While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,” Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven
Key takeaway: The sound, not just the letter, matters. Words like "kitty cat" and "fish phobia" count as alliteration, while "thirty typists" do not because "th" and "ty" don’t share the same sound.
Define Alliteration In Literature
Alliteration in Beowulf & more
A literary classic famous for its use of alliteration is the long poem Beowulf, written in Old English between the 8th and 11th centuries.
Works like Beowulf were meant to be read aloud, using alliteration to help readers remember the story. Lines from the poem include:
- “To feast his fill of the flesh of men.”
- “Gulped the blood, and gobbled the flesh.”
- “He found them sprawled in sleep, suspecting nothing, their dreams undisturbed / Up from his swampland, sliding silently. Toward that gold-shining hall.”
We can also define alliteration in literature using character names:
- Humbert Humbert: Lolita
- Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey: The Hobbit
- Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov: Crime and Punishment
- Peter Pevensie: The Chronicles of Narnia
- Sansa Stark, Lancel Lannister, Podrick Payne: A Song of Ice and Fire
Snazzy Sansa
Alliteration is particularly prevalent in children’s literature because it makes language fun and easy to listen to. Studies also show that alliteration words enhance children’s ability to remember the material and to later repeat it.
Examples of alliteration include works by Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein.
- “David Donald Doo dreamed a dozen doughnuts and a duck-dog, too,” Dr. Seuss
- “Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight,” Dr. Seuss
- “We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow / and watch where the chalk-white arrows go,” Shel Silverstein
- I saw an ol' gnome/ Take a gknock at a gnat / Who was gnibbling the gnose of his gnu.”
As you can see, Silverstein even created nonsense words just so that he could alliterate!
JK Rowling frequently uses alliteration in her Harry Potter novels, because the books are for and about children. She also uses it to express the essence of her whimsical world of witches and wizards.
Notable nomenclature • Harry Potter
Many of the Harry Potter characters in the chart have alliterative names, and not all of these start their first and last name with the same letter. Some have names featuring alliterative sounds, such as AlBUS DUMbledoere (the UH sound of each U) and BelLAtrix LEstrange, with the LA/LE sounds alliterating. CeDErick DIggory repeats prominent D sounds.
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What Is Alliteration In Comics And Film?
Alliteration in comics
Comic book characters often feature alliterative names to enhance memorability:
- Billy Batson / Captain Marvel
- Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk
- Cassandra Cain / Batgirl
- Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Lana Lang / Superman
- Jessica Jones / Jessica Jones
- Matt Murdock / Daredevil
- Peter Parker, The Green Goblin, J. Jonah Jameson / Spider-Man
- Scott Summers / The X-Men
- Stephen Strange / Doctor Strange
- Susan Storm, Reed Richards / Fantastic Four
- Wally West / The Flash
- Wade Winston Wilson / Deadpool
In this video, the narrator explains why alliterative character names are so prevalent in Marvel comics in particular.
Definition and meaning: What's an alliteration
As the narrator describes, alliteration has a particularly pleasant effect on our brains, which like to recognize patterns. This leads to the positive associations comic book authors want readers to have with their work. After all, positive associations often lead to profitable projects!
Other literary devices that work on our brain to create rhythm and meaning include symbolism and onomatopoeia.
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Alliterate to Attract Audiences
What is alliteration in movies?
Screenwriters use alliteration for catchy movie titles and dialogue. Thousands of novel and film titles are alliterative. Like company and brand names, short catchy titles are memorable and easy to market -- even to global audiences who may not speak much English, or who can more easily recognize words phonetically.
The best of them can also be very economical in conveying the essence of a movie. Here are some of the alliteration examples of movie titles just for one letter -- M. For hundreds more from A-Z, visit this site.
Alliteration example: Teeming with titles
What does alliteration mean to screenwriters? Properly used, it can prove pragmatic and profitable. Want to both signal a Batman origin story, as well as set it apart from earlier installments? You could barely do better than Batman Begins.
Need to indicate who is at the center of a film, as well as give an idea of his effect on audiences? How about Magic Mike?
What Women Want -- here’s a movie with answers, the title slyly suggests.
And while Unusual Day Before the Weekend delivers the data, it certainly can’t compete with the juicy jolt of Freaky Friday.
What is an alliteration in film?
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Famous Alliteration Examples In Character Names
Examples of alliteration in film
Screenwriters can also apply alliteration to movie character names and quotes. Some famous alliterative movie character names include:
- Benjamin Button
- Bobby Boucher
- Buckaroo Banzai
- Donnie Darko
- King Kong
- Marty McFly
- Roger Rabbit
- Steve Stifler
- Tracy Turnblad
- Vincent Vega
- Willy Wonka
Characters may also express themselves alliteratively as a way to convey personality traits such as eccentricity or precision.
In this clip from V for Vendetta (2005), the masked freedom fighter V uses alliteration. Sentences convey that he is both a learned man and a showman who makes grand gestures as a way to draw attention to his cause.
What does alliteration sound like?
Usage Examples
Scene Study
As discussed above, JK Rowling uses alliteration extensively throughout her Harry Potter universe, for character names and places, as well as dialogue. Here is an example from the movie version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, written by Steve Kloves:
Alliteration Words: Professorial palaver
What does alliteration mean to Minerva? As with V in V for Vendetta, McGonagall’s alliterative dialogue expresses the nature of her character - an erudite educator and whimsical wizard. Also, as someone who engages with children often, she is intermittently inclined to intone nursery rhymes.
Here you can see how it is woven into the written script of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, much like how screenwriting software helps refine dialogue and action. As in the filmed scene, there is alliteration in the dialogue. But the writer even includes it in the description of the action (“wolf whistle”) to help enhance the flavor on the page.
Kloves adapts the essence of the character and the alliterative dialogue from the novel. The zippy and playful dialogue helps the actors understand the tone of the scene and how to perform it.
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Explore more literary devices
Alliteration is just one of many literary devices and types of figurative language, including allusion, assonance, and consonance. If you're a writer and want to develop your craft fully, do yourself a favor and continue this exploration. The next article on literary devices is a gateway to many of these tools that help add substance and style to any type of written work.
