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Are you looking for alliteration examples to spice up your conversation, headlines, stories, or writing in general?
Alliteration creates a flow between words that can make them easier to remember, funnier, and even boost their emotional impact.
It also makes written text more interesting and engaging, allowing writers to make their points stand out with greater force and clarity.
It’s especially helpful with stories for kids. It’s no surprise that so many characters from children’s stories have alliterative names (i.e. Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, etc.)
But did you also know that it’s a powerful tool in marketing as well?
Alliteration is used in a variety of ways, and we’re going to dive into the specifics as well as provide you with a TON of alliteration examples in this article.
Whether you’re an author, freelance writer, marketer, ghostwriter, or just looking for inspiration for your next headline, we’ve got a lot to share.
What is the Definition of Alliteration?
Alliteration is a figure of speech in which the initial consonant sounds of words are repeated within a phrase or sentence.
For example:
Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
The beginning consonant sound “P” is repeated to form a string of alliterative words.
It’s an expressive and powerful way to add emphasis to phrases in literature, poetry and nursery rhymes, as well as for fun in everyday speech.
Since alliteration relies on the repetition of beginning sounds rather than letters, it can work with any combination of the same consonant sounds and vowel sounds regardless of language or dialect.
This allows writers from different backgrounds and cultures to use alliteration without having to worry about linguistic boundaries.
What is the Difference Between Alliteration, Assonance, and Consonance?
Alliteration, assonance, and consonance are all techniques used to create sound effects and patterns in poems, songs, and other writing.
Alliteration involves the repetition of the initial consonant sound in two or more words. For instance, in the phrase “Even elephants enjoy eating eggs every day.”, alliteration is created by the repetition of the vowel sound “E”.
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within multiple words, regardless of where they are located within the word. An example of assonance would be “crying time”, where there is a repetition of the long “i” sound between each of the words.
Consonance is the repetition of the same consonant sound within multiple words that are not necessarily at the beginning. For example, “Laura called to tell me that Lila had fallen ill.”
Why is Alliteration Used?
Alliteration is used in spoken and written language for a variety of reasons.
Interest and Emphasis
Alliteration is often used in poetry, nursery rhymes, and storytelling, as it can add rhythm, interest, and emphasis to a text and has been used across many languages for centuries, from ancient Latin to modern English.
Examples of Alliteration for Emphasis
- Business is booming.
- Walking in a Winter Wonderland
- Through Thick and Thin
- Sweet Smell of Success
- Shell-Shocked
- Road Rage
- Party Pooper
- Pinch Pennies
- Mere Mortals
- Move Mountains
Humor
In addition to being an effective literary tool, alliteration can also be used as a tool for humor.
By emphasizing the same sound in an alliterative phrase, you can create jokes, funny stories, and clever puns that make your listeners laugh.
Alliteration sentences can also be used for word games like tongue twisters and riddles that require quick thinking skills.
Examples of Alliteration Tongue Twisters
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
- Sally sells seashells down by the seashore.
- Better batter makes batter better.
- Six slimy snails slowly slithered southward.
- How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
- Fred fried five fat frogs from France.
- Lisa likes licking luscious lemons lazily.
- Sweet Susie swiftly skated on slim silver skates.
- Tammy took two tiny toy tigers to the store.
- Martha’s mother made a marvelous marmalade.
Memory and Impact
Because alliteration is related to sound, it can help to make concepts easier to recall in your memory. Successive words and phrases with repeated sounds are “catchy,” and therefore literally catch in your mind.
This makes alliteration a particularly powerful tool when it’s used in the marketing of products and services. If you’re able to stay on someone’s mind or be easier recalled, it’s more likely that the person will return to visit your product or service again.
Examples of Alliteration in Marketing
Try to create alliteration in your own marketing copy to increase the power and persuasion of your message.
Here are a few more additional examples of alliteration in marketing headlines:
- Teaching Mommies How to Manage Money
- Blogging Basics for Beginners
- Weight Loss for Overworked Women
You can also cruise through our list of power words to help you pack a punch in your headlines, product titles, and more.
How to Use Alliteration: Additional Alliteration Examples
See what I did there? Additional alliteration examples!
Creating alliteration in your own writing is actually rather easy, but we’re about to give you a whole lot more inspiration if you need it!
Alliteration Examples in Books, TV, and Film
- Wonder Woman
- The Princess and the Pea
- Big Bang Theory
- Magic Mike
- Batman Begins
- What Women Want
- Freaky Friday
- Benjamin Button
- King Kong
- Willy Wonka
- Fantastic Four
- The King Killer Chronicles
- Beauty and the Beast
- Fast and the Furious
Alliteration Examples in Quotes and Phrases
- Method to the Madness
- Blind as a Bat
- Busy as a Bee
- Dead as a Doornail
- Right as Rain
- Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill
- Hit the Hay
- Picture Perfect
- No Nonsense
- Cream of the Crop
- Quick Question
- Good as Gold
- Last Laugh
- Out of Order
- Creature of Comfort
- Do or Die
- Bottom of the Barrel
- Bite the Bullet
- Beat Around the Bush
- Go for the Gold
Alliteration Examples in Brand Names
- BestBuy
- LuluLemon
- Door Dash
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- Coca Cola
- Weight Watchers
- Bed, Bath, and Beyond
- Chuckee-Cheese’s
- PayPal
- American Airlines
- American Apparel
- Krispy Kreme
Alliteration Examples in Sports
- Los Angeles Lakers
- Pittsburg Penguins
- Pittsburg Pirates
- Seattle Seahawks
- Buffalo Bills
Alliteration Examples in Poetry and Literature
1. From The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe:
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
2. From Three Grey Geese by Mother Goose:
Three grey geese in a field grazing
Grey were the geese and green was the grazing
3. From The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
4. From Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare:
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes;
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life.”
5. From Beowulf:
“To feast his fill of the flesh of men.”
Alliteration Examples in Character Names
- Minnie Mouse
- Donald Duck
- Marilyn Monroe
- Peter Parker
- The Wicked Witch of the West
- Spongebob Squarepants
- Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Porky Pig
- Tony the Tiger
- Luna Lovegood
- Severus Snape
- Helga Hufflepuff
- Bugs Bunny
- Big Bird
- Fred Flinstone
Alliteration Examples in Music
- Foo Fighters
- Counting Crows
- Backstreet Boys
- Beach Boys
- Beastie Boys
- “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” — Joni, Mitchell
- “I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king” — Frank Sinatra
- “Whisper words of wisdom, let it be” — The Beatles
Alliterative Words by Letter
A
Adam’s Apple
All the animals arrived after eight.
Ally the Alligator
B
Business is booming
Back to basics
The battle was a blood bath.
C
Common courtesy
The coast is clear.
The cozy cottage
D
Dine and dash
Dark clouds descended.
David the dinosaur destroyed the dominos.
E
Eagle Eye
Everlasting Eternity
Eliminate the evil extraterrestrials.
F
Fight or flight
The flag flies over the field.
Feed the Flames
G
Golden goose
Gentle giant
The grass is greener.
H
Home for the Holidays
Fall Head Over Heels
Hungry Hungry Hippos
I
The irony is isolating.
Idolized Ivy League
Identical Identity
J
Jump for joy
Jack and Jill
Jumping jacks
K
Keep your kids in kindergarten.
Keeper of the Keys
The Kicking Kangaroo
L
Light of My Life
The lion licked his lips.
Live, Love, Laugh
M
Mind Your Manners
There are many monsters in the mountains.
Millionaires make money mindlessly.
N
Nosy Neighbors
Notice the nature in the north.
No Nasty Nightmares
O
An octopus is out in the open.
Open Ocean
Offer your olives to others.
P
Password Protection
Peter Parker is a practical person.
Perfect Pumpkin Pie
Q
The quotes from the queen are quaint.
Quit the Quest
Quality Over Quantity
R
Raisins and Raspberries
The rain is relentless.
Rags and Riches
S
Signature Style
The ship sank in the storm.
Slow as a Sloth
T
Tequila and Taco Tuesday
Trick or Treat
Troubling Times
U
Unique Unicorn
Under the Umbrella
Your uncle is ugly and upset.
V
Vice Versa
The violet is very vivid.
Vacationing in a Van
W
Whistle while you work.
We went whale watching.
Words of Wisdom
X
Xavier needed an X-Ray.
Y
Say Yes to Yogurt
You used the yellow yolk.
Yin and Yang
Z
The zebra zooms around the zoo.
The Zany Zebra
Zig Zag
How to Generate Alliteration Ideas
Alliteration is pretty cool but it can also be hard to come up with ideas on your own. Here a great way to come up with your own alliteration ideas.
Start with a Base Word
The best way to start is to come up with your base word or words.
This could be a product name, a topic for your content, or part of a character name.
Let’s say that we have a product about vegetable gardening. We can use both of these as base words.
- Vegetables
- Gardening (Garden)
If you need help getting more ideas, you can also use a synonym finder or a thesaurus to help you come up with additional, related words. For example:
- Produce, Harvest, Crops, Greens
- Park, Plot, Ground, Patch, Allotment, Nursery, Conservatory, Greenhouse
Once you have your baseline, it’s time to come up with some adjectives.
Brainstorm Adjectives
If we’re talking about a Hippo, we can throw in an adjective like “hungry,” to get “Hungry Hippo.”
Let go back to our example of a product on vegetable gardening and add a few adjectives.
- Victorious Vegetables
- Vagabonds and Vegetables
- Various Vegetables
- Graceful Gardening
- The Gifted Gardener
- Gardens and Glamour
That’s pretty much it! That’s a fantastic way to start creating your own alliteration.
Below are a few alliteration tools that we’ve found to help you create your own alliteration.
5 Free Alliteration Tools
Unfortunately, there aren’t any really great alliteration generators worth mentioning, but there are a few other tools that you can use to help you create your own alliterative text.
1. Synonym Seeker
As stated on their website, Synonym Seeker is “An aid at alleviating all alliterative aspirations.”
There are a lot of synonym generators online and thesaurus tools, but what makes this alliteration tool stand out is the ability to select a starting letter for your generated words.
All you have to do is enter your word and then choose a letter you want the answers to start with.
If you don’t select a letter, it will generate a list of synonyms for your word and organize it by letter, which is also helpful!
2. Random Word Generator
The Random Word Generator is a cool tool because it will generate random words for you based on the type of word and the starting (or ending) letter.
For example, you can choose to generate a list of nouns or adjectives that start with the letter G (or end with the letter G).
You can use this tool to generate nouns, adjectives, verbs, names, sentences, phrases, and more.
For alliteration purposes, I find the adjective generator particularly useful.
3. WordHippo Synonym Finder
WordHippo is a super simple solution (ha!) that can generate words for you.
In the settings, you can choose between synonyms, antonyms, meanings, rhymes, and words starting or ending with a certain letter.
There are also translations and a few other settings that you can explore, but those are probably the main types you want to explore when creating an alliteration.
Simply choose your desired word type and enter your word in the box to generate new words.
4. Thesaurus
A thesaurus is a seriously underrated tool for improving your writing and vocabulary. A thesaurus is simply a tool used to generate similar (synonyms) or opposite (antonyms) to words.
Using an online thesaurus tool is really helpful because you can easily click around to different words and get additional recommended words and definitions.
You can use a thesaurus to generate alternate base words or adjectives for your alliteration.
5. Capitalize My Title Adjective Generator
Finally, Capitalize My Title is an additional adjective generator that you can use to come up with adjectives for your alliteration.
If all else fails, you can also just run an internet search for “words that start with… (+ letter)” to generate ideas, but it can certainly take a little longer.
To use this tool, simply choose the number of adjectives that you want to generate and enter the desired first letter of your word.
You can also set your word types to nouns, adjectives, verbs, or all words.
Summary of Alliteration Examples
Alliteration is a really popular technique commonly used to create rhythm and structure in literature, poetry, and other writing pieces.
Alliteration can add emphasis to your writing, help make your products or services more memorable, and make language more fun and enjoyable.
Using alliterative phrases is an effective way to capture the attention of both kids and adults, tell stories, and keep people engaged.
Remember that you can also use alliteration to invoke specific moods and emotions, such as nostalgia or joy.
When used correctly, alliteration can add complexity, depth, and texture to text—and even create a unique musicality that helps pieces stand out from the crowd!
Try using more alliterative sentences in your own writing!