Literature Glossary

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Over 200 literary terms, Shmooped to perfection.

Amplification

Definition:

Amplification is the rhetorical equivalent of a good old-fashioned ear trumpet. It's the process of enriching a sentence so that the reader can understand it more clearly.

For example, you could say "The soup my dad made tasted terrible." Okay, gross soup. Got it. But if you used amplification, you could add more meaning and value to your sentence by putting its terribleness on blast. Check it out: "The soup my dad made tasted like he boiled a tire and seasoned it with dandruff and clam juice."

Now that's some nasty soup.