His style makes use of figures of speech such as makurakotoba, jokotoba, and ouin (押韻) or rhyme. Among his chōka, he makes use of complex and variant taiku (対句) or antithesis. In his tanka, Hitomaro makes use of nearly 140 makurakotoba, among which half are not seen in previous works, which attests to his originality.In addition, his poetry includes kotodama such as: Shikishima no / Yamato no kuni ha / kototama no / tasukuru kuni zo / masakiku ari koso (敷島の 大和の国は 言霊の 助くる国ぞ まさきくありこそ) (Man'yōshū Vol. 13, 3254)