A term you'll meet in sound device in poetry and prose.
Sibilance is a sound device: the repetition of soft hissing consonants — chiefly the "s" sound, along with "sh," "z," and soft "c" — close together in a line or passage. It's a specific, easily heard kind of consonance that writers use for a distinct set of effects.
Because sibilant sounds hiss and whisper, they carry strong associations. Depending on context, sibilance can feel soothing and gentle ("the soft hush of the sea"), seductive and intimate, or sinister and snake-like — think of the hissing menace a string of "s" sounds can lend a villain's speech.
The two overlap but aren't identical. Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound at the start of nearby words. Sibilance is the repetition of sibilant sounds anywhere in the words — beginnings, middles, or ends. So "the snake slid past the grass" is both alliterative and sibilant, but a line can be sibilant without the "s" sounds all sitting at the front.
Sibilance works best when its sound suits the meaning. A poet describing a calm, drowsy evening might lace the lines with soft "s" sounds to slow the reader and create hush; a writer evoking treachery might use the same sounds to make the language seem to hiss. The device is a way of making the reader hear the mood.
Read aloud and listen for a cluster of "s," "sh," and "z" sounds. Then ask the key question — not just "is there sibilance?" but "what is it doing here?" The mark of real analysis is connecting the soft hiss to the feeling the passage is building.
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