Identify the figure of speech in the following sentence :
He lay all night on his sleepless pillow.

Question

Accepted Answer

Transferred Epithet

**Explanation:**

The figure of speech in the sentence "He lay all night on his sleepless pillow" is a Transferred Epithet.

*   **Why Transferred Epithet is Correct:** A transferred epithet (also known as hypallage) is a figure of speech in which an adjective (the epithet) grammatically qualifies a noun other than the person or thing it is actually describing. In this case, the adjective "sleepless" is grammatically modifying "pillow." However, it's not the pillow that is sleepless; it's the *person* (He) lying on the pillow who is sleepless. The adjective is thus transferred from the person to the pillow. The pillow is sleepless because the person using it is sleepless.

*   **Why the Other Options are Incorrect:**

*   **Metaphor:** A metaphor is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things without using "like" or "as." There is no direct comparison being made in the sentence. The pillow isn't being described *as* something else.

*   **Personification:** Personification gives human qualities to inanimate objects or abstract ideas. While a pillow cannot literally be sleepless, the sentence doesn't attribute other human-like actions or feelings to the pillow beyond the adjective. The focus is on the *transferred* quality, not on giving the pillow full human characteristics.

*   **Epigram:** An epigram is a concise, witty, and often paradoxical statement. The sentence, while evocative, doesn't possess the brevity, wit, or paradoxical nature characteristic of an epigram.