Imagery

Imagery is "the literary device of using sensory language: figurative language that evokes a mental image" along with other vivid sense impressions in the reader's imagination; the Greek rhetoricians called it enargia. The standard sorting is by sense: visual imagery is the most common, and auditory (including onomatopoeia), olfactory, gustatory, tactile, kinesthetic and organic imagery each carry their own load, smell deepening a setting, touch amplifying intimacy, movement quickening pace. In storytelling imagery also works beyond the senses, helping convey tone, mood and symbolism, and it pairs with the other figurative tools: a metaphor or simile gives an image its specificity, and rhythm sets how fast it lands.

Imagery is the engine of show, don't tell: "show" means putting the sense impression on the page and letting the reader draw the feeling from it. The craft test is earn, not amount.