What Is Alliteration? – Meaning and Definition

Try saying this out loud, quickly: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. The p sound keeps popping up at the start of word after word. That repeated starting sound is called alliteration.

So what is alliteration, exactly, and how do you spot it? The short answer fits in one sentence.

Alliteration meaning and definition

Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of words that are close together in a phrase or sentence.

The key word is sound. Alliteration depends on what you hear, not on the letters you see. That catches out a lot of students, so it’s worth slowing down on.

Sound, not spelling

Look at these pairs:

• Cat and kite alliterate. They are spelled with different letters, C and K, but both start with a /k/ sound.
• Cat and city don’t alliterate. Both start with C, but one makes a /k/ sound and the other an /s/ sound.
• Phone and fish alliterate, because both start with /f/.
• Knife and nose alliterate. The k in “knife” is silent, so both words start with /n/.

So “crazy cats climbing Christmas trees” is alliteration, because the “Ch” in Christmas makes a /k/ sound. “Cheerful chickens crafting cute crafts” isn’t fully alliterative. Cheerful and chickens start with /ch/, while crafting, cute and crafts start with /k/. That’s two groups of sounds mixed together.

A simple rule for kids: close your eyes and listen. If the words start with the same noise, it’s alliteration.

Alliteration examples kids will recognise

Tongue twisters. Alliteration is what makes these hard to say. Repeating similar sounds quickly trips up the tongue.

• She sells seashells by the seashore.
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
• Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said, “The butter’s bitter.”

Alliteration in poetry. Poets use it to give lines a beat and tie words together. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes a ship racing across the sea: “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, / The furrow followed free.” Read it aloud, and the repeated b and f sounds feel like wind.

Shakespeare uses it in the opening lines of Romeo and Juliet: “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes”.

Names. Comic book and cartoon creators often give characters alliterative names because they’re easy to remember: Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck.

Brand names and slogans. Companies use alliteration for the same reason: Coca-Cola, PayPal, Dunkin’ Donuts, KitKat. Shops and restaurants do it too. Look at the signboards in any market and you’ll probably spot a few.

Alliteration, assonance and rhyme

Students sometimes confuse these three. They all repeat sounds, but in different places.

• Alliteration repeats the first sound: big blue balloon.
• Assonance repeats a vowel sound inside words: the rain in Spain.
• Rhyme repeats the ending sound: cat, hat, mat.

A single line can use more than one. “Silly sally sells seashells” is mostly alliteration, with a little assonance in “sally” and “silly”.

Writing your own

Kids find alliteration easiest to write by starting with a name and an animal.

1. Pick an animal: a tiger.
2. Find an adjective that starts with the same sound: tired.
3. Add an action: tiptoes.
4. Add a place: through the tall trees.

That gives you: A tired tiger tiptoes through the tall trees.

Younger kids can stop after step 2 (“tired tiger”). Older kids can try to keep the alliteration going for a whole sentence without it sounding forced. That’s harder than it looks, and it’s the kind of creative writing task kids practise in Bambinos’ online English classes for kids.

Wordplay like this also helps with speaking. Tongue twisters are a staple warm-up in public speaking and drama classes, because they get the mouth moving and the words coming out clearly. Bambinos teachers use them as warm-ups in their live online classes for kids, and the first trial session is free.