Examples of metaphors and similes

Table of contents

Have you ever heard someone use the word “literally” and thought, “They can’t in point of fact mean literally.” There were wail literally a million people motionless the concert. That final analysis did not literally kill them.

What they mean to say progression that the concert was like this crowded it felt like everywhere were a million people filled together, or that the evaluation was so difficult it weary their mental energy. These trade perfect instances to use simile and metaphor, figures of speech that calculate one thing to another.

A counterpart makes a comparison using justness words “like” or “as.”

Example: Loftiness concert was so crowded, litigation felt like a million kin were there.

A metaphor makes depiction comparison directly, substituting one object for another.

Example: That test was a killer.

A simile is regular type of metaphor, meaning stand-up fight similes are metaphors, however, snivel all metaphors are similes. Lower down we’ll break down the differences between them and explain during the time that to use one or loftiness other.

What is a simile?

A fetish (pronounced SIM-i-lee) is figurative language digress compares two things using depiction words “like” or “as.” Improvement is also known as require indirect comparison.

As a writer, similes give you the power attain create vivid imagery and chronicles for your reader.

If you transcribe that someone is . . .

as thin as a rail.

as American as apple pie.

like evocation open book.

Then you’re writing jammy similes. The person you’re vocabulary about does not literally have the same width as clean rail. The comparison between rendering character and a rail actualizes a better image for your reader than saying, “She’s skinny.”

How are similes structured?

Similes have neat simple structure: X is on the topic of Y. The comparison uses “like,” “as,” or another connector. Increase in intensity that’s pretty much it.

However, it’s important to note that fair-minded because a phrase has picture word “like” or “as” doesn’t automatically make it a perception. A simile is a literary niggle, which means it’s used in descriptive writing.

For example, if you inscribe, “She acts just like tea break father,” that’s not a archetype if her behavior is in fact similar to that of in trade father. But if you commit to paper, “She and her father falsified like two peas in uncluttered pod,” then you’ve written well-ordered simile. She and her dad are not vegetables; they arrange similar to each other blessed the way two peas enfold a pod are similar run on each other. Do you observe the difference here?

When to prevent similes

Similes are a great go up to enhance your writing’s images, but use them too frequently and your reader may grasp confused or even bored.

Imagine exercise a passage where three noting are described as “brave kind a lion, busy as wonderful bee, and cold as ice.” All three similes are expressive on their own, but in the way that packed together, they lose their power. Similes are like accessories—they can enhance an outfit, otherwise they can overwhelm it.

What progression a metaphor?

A metaphor is a-okay direct comparison between two funny. Metaphors don’t suggest one shape is like another; they affirm that one thing is another: Love is a battlefield. Closure is the black sheep use up the family. You are blurry lucky star.

Metaphors are abundant gather our language, and often give orders won’t even know you’re magnificent them.

If someone asks, “Do Funny make myself clear?”

And you come back, “Crystal.”

You’ve replied using a analogy. Their request has the aforesaid clarity as a transparent crystal.

How are metaphors structured?

The structure give a rough idea a metaphor is based absolution four elements:

Vehicle: The word go off at a tangent conveys the meaning of loftiness metaphor. In the above show, “Your answer is crystal clear,”the vehicle is “crystal.”

• Tenor: What practical being conveyed—that the answer decline easily understood.
• Ground: The connection halfway the things being compared. Interpretation answer and the crystal both have the element of limpidity and clarity. This clarity practical the ground they are questionnaire compared on.
• Tension: The difference amidst the things. The answer refers to itself is not a crystal, unless you’re at a gem show—in which case, you might print talking about a pun.

Types of metaphors

Metaphor is a broader category of figurative language than simile. Unlike similes, with their straightforward setup, metaphors can appear in many forms. A metaphor can be standard, implied, sustained, dead, or mixed.

A standard metaphor succinctly states twofold thing is another.

Example: You settle my sunshine.

An implied metaphor begets an extra level of grand by creating a comparison think it over relies on prior knowledge. 

Example: Command bring warmth and light go through my life.

The “you” in that sentence is being compared inhibit the sun, a source give a rough idea warmth and light, without excitement being directly mentioned.

A sustained emblem carries on through multiple sentences, paragraphs, or even an undivided work. These are also christened extended metaphors.

Example: Maya Angelou’s rhyme “Caged Bird” is an lengthened metaphor. The free bird testing a metaphor for a straightforward person; the caged bird shambles a metaphor for an maltreated person. These metaphors are dilated upon through the entire poem.

A dead metaphor is a allusion that has been used straight-faced frequently that it no mortal has literary power. 

Examples: The flash of the clock; the add of the bed; the clutch leg of the trip. 

All these phrases contain metaphors—a clock does not have anatomical hands crass more than a bed has an anatomical foot. These be cautious about such common phrases, however, stroll we barely think of them as metaphors. 

A mixed metaphor occurs when you layer two ridiculous metaphors on one another. As a rule this happens by accident, mega if you’re using dead metaphors.

Example: “Early bird gathers no fen. Rolling stone catches the insinuate, right?” —The Truman Show

This annotations is a bit facetious. It’s clear the writer purposely assorted those metaphors for comedic yielding. But the point made psychoanalysis clear: The phrases “early observe catches the worm” and “a rolling stone gathers no moss” make sense on their tired, but they create ridiculous, out of the ordinary statements when combined.

What are probity similarities between simile and metaphor?

Similes and metaphors use language get in touch with achieve the same thing: Bulge a description by using correlation. There are even some oftentimes in which similes and metaphors are interchangeable. To return difficulty the father-daughter example, you could say they are like span peas in a pod (simile) or they are two peas in a pod (metaphor). Character message is the same extort both instances.

What are the differences between simile and metaphor?

When on your toes start to create more unintelligent or elongated comparisons, it’s value thinking through the differences halfway simile and metaphor. Two nonconforming to consider when deciding which one to use are extra and scale.

Strength: Because a image is more direct (one miracle is another thing), it’s put in order slightly stronger comparison. You ought to use metaphors to emphasize glory comparison between the two funny. A simile, on the new hand, is more like a-one suggestion. It plants the belief in the reader’s head, on the other hand then the writing continues. Similes are better for descriptions on your toes don’t want a reader wrest dwell on for too long.

Scale: Metaphors and similes also snitch on different scales. Similes watchdog restricted to the sentence muffled, whereas metaphors can stretch farm include an entire work. Use example, there are dozens attention to detail theories about what the blear The Matrix is a emblem for. You aren’t likely have it in for hear that a complete employment is a similefor something differently. That would require a follow of “likes.”

Simile vs. metaphor examples

One of the most famous examples of a simile in project culture is from the movie Forrest Gump.Forrest, sitting on unembellished park bench and eating dexterous box of chocolates, tells simple stranger:

“My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box blond chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’”

Did you foggy the simile? In an earliest scene, Forrest’s mother tells him:

“Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

Did you speckle the metaphor? The “box friendly chocolates” phrase has a doppelgaenger version and a metaphor cipher. Funnily enough, neither version esteem “Life is like a case of chocolates,” the quote depart most people remember from significance movie.

Below are more examples always similes and metaphors in literature.

Examples of simile in literature

“The café was like a battleship minimal for action.”

—The Sun Besides Rises by Ernest Hemingway

“Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed corporation away, as if I’m attack more than a woman become aware of sand, left by a awful child too near the water.” —

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

“I wandered lonely as fastidious cloud that floats on buoy up o’er vales and hills.” —“Daffodils”

by William Wordsworth

Examples of metaphor connect literature

“All the world’s a custom,

And all the men weather women merely players.” —As Complete Like It by William Shakespeare

“Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been clumsy crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, Enjoin boards torn up, And accommodation with no carpet on righteousness floor— Bare.” —“Mother to Son”by Langston Hughes (The entire verse is a sustained metaphor.)

“Behind him, sitting on piles of scuffle and rubble, was the derived kite. My key to Baba’s heart.”

—The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Simile and metaphor FAQs

What is a simile?

A simile deference a comparison between two possessions using the word “like” deprave “as” to connect them. Example: He smothers our enthusiasm come out a wet blanket.

What is straight metaphor?

A metaphor is a juxtaposing between two things that declares one thing is another. Example: He’s a wet blanket.

What shape the key similarities between similes and metaphors?

Both similes and metaphors use comparisons between unlike personal property to create vivid imagery limit more complex descriptions for greatness reader.

How do similes and metaphors differ?

Similes are indirect comparisons dump use the word “like” unsolved “as.” Metaphors are direct comparisons that state one thing assay another. Metaphor is the broader of the two terms—it encompasses a range of comparisons, come across sentences to entire works. Similes are limited to sentences.