Figurative Language - the core 5

Figurative language

Words or phrases that are meaningful, but not literally true. It is often used to create vivid impressions by setting up comparisons between dissimilar things.

Simile

A figure of speech in which "like or "as" is used to make a comparison between two basically unlike ideas (e.g. "Her eyes were as blue as a clear sky.")

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else. This device implies a comparison between the two things, but without using "like" or "as." (E.g. "Her lips were rose petals.")

Personification

A type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics (e.g. "the wind howled;" "the flowers danced to the wind")

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally (e.g. "Her smile was a mile wide;" "I'm so hungry I can eat a horse;" "I was dying of laughter").

Idiom

An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own (e.g. "hold your horses;" "it's raining cats and dogs;" "he threw his colleagues under the bus").