Auxesis (ok-see’-sis): (1) Arranging words or clauses in a sequence of increasing force. In this sense, auxesis is comparable to climax and has sometimes been called incrementum. (2) A figure of speech in which something is referred to in terms disproportionately large (a kind of exaggeration or hyperbole). (3) Amplification in general.
(1) We are born. We crawl. We walk. We run. We never get there. Life is like a dull knife—more likely to fatally cut you than a well-sharpened piece of steel, as you push its chipped edge forward and try to carve out your desired future, it slips out of time and guts you.
(2) My credit card is like a license plate affixed to a red limo going 125 MPH toward the gates of Heaven. It vibrates with luxury, fine dining, and gold. It is my partner, my joy, my dream come true, until the end of the month when I cut it up and steal a new one.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
Print and Kindle versions of The Daily Trope are available from Amazon under the title The Book of Tropes.
The Daily Trope 