One of the most popular pages at About.com Grammar & Composition is Top 20 Figures of Speech, which offers brief definitions of such key terms as metaphor and simile, hyperbole and understatement--rhetorical devices that you probably studied in school.

But what about some of the less familiar figures and tropes? While we may not recognize their names (most of them derived from Latin or Greek), we still use and hear a good number of these devices every day.

As a sequel to the article Rhetorical Terms That We Never Learned in School, here are 20 uncommon words for some fairly common rhetorical strategies. For examples and expanded discussions (along with each word's etymology and a guide to pronunciation), simply click on the term to visit a page in our glossary.

1. Anastrophe
   A rhetorical term for the inversion of conventional word order (also known as Yoda-speak).
2. Antonomasia
   A rhetorical term for the substitution of a title, epithet, or descriptive phrase for a proper name (or of a personal name for a common name) to designate a member of a group or class.
3. Apophasis
   The rhetorical strategy of emphasizing a point by pretending to pass over it. According to Cicero, we use the figure of apophasis (also known as paralepsis) whenever "we say we pass over, or do not know, or will not mention, that which we declare with the utmost force."
4. Asyndeton
   The omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses--the opposite of polysyndeton.
5. Brachylogy
   A concise or condensed form of expression in speech or writing--the opposite of battology.

1. Cacozelia
   A traditional rhetorical term for wordiness, stylistic excess, and "perverse affectation"--in particular, the excessive use of foreign and archaic words to impress an audience. Also known as mingle-mangle.
2. Congeries
   A rhetorical term for the piling up of words or phrases. In The Garden of Eloquence (1577), Henry Peacham defines congeries as a "heaping together of many words signifying diverse things of like nature."
3. Crot
   A verbal bit or fragment used as an autonomous unit to create an effect of abruptness and rapid transition.
4. Distinctio
   Explicit references to the various meanings of a word--usually for the purpose of removing ambiguities.
5. Epanorthosis
   A figure of speech in which a speaker corrects or comments on something he or she has just said. Similar to metanoia.
6. Epistrophe
   A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses. Also known as epiphora.
7. Ethopoeia
   Putting oneself in the place of another so as to both understand and express his or her feelings more vividly.
8. Gradatio
   A rhetorical term for a sentence construction in which the last word of one clause becomes the first of the next, through three or more clauses (an extended form of anadiplosis).
9. Hypophora
   A rhetorical term for the strategy in which a speaker raises a question and then immediately answers it.
10. Hysteron Proteron
    A figure of speech in which the natural or conventional order of words is reversed.
11. Metaplasm
    A rhetorical term for any alteration in the form of a word, in particular the addition, subtraction, or substitution of letters or sounds.
12. Paromologia
    An argumentative strategy (a type of concession) by which a speaker acknowledges the validity of an opponent's point in order to strengthen his or her primary claim.
13. Prosopopoeia
    A figure of speech in which an absent or imaginary person is represented as speaking; another name for personification.
14. Stasis
    In classical rhetoric, the process of, first, identifying the central issues in a dispute, and then finding arguments by which to address those issues effectively.
15. Transferred Epithet
    A figure of speech in which an epithet (or adjective) grammatically qualifies a noun other than the person or thing it's actually describing. Also known as hypallage.