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Figurative Language
English 11
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Simile

Definition: A statement that shows a comparison between
two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”
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Examples
 “Kate inched over her own thoughts like a measuring
worm.”
— from East of Eden by John Steinbeck
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“In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid
for the feet of the coming sun . . .”
— from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
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Metaphor

Definition: A statement that shows a direct or indirect
comparison between two unlike things that does not use the
words “like” or “as”
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Examples:
 “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely
players. They have their exits and their entrances.”
— from As You Like It by William Shakespeare

“A good conscience is a continual Christmas.”
— Benjamin Franklin
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Personification

Definition: A device that gives non-human objects human
characteristics
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Examples:
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“My stick fingers click with a snicker And, chuckling, they
knuckle the keys; Light-footed, my steel feelers
flicker And pluck from these keys melodies.”
— from “Player Piano” by John Updike
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“The brush grabbed at his legs in the dark until one knee
of his jeans was ripped.”
— from “Flight” by John Steinbeck
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Hyperbole

Definition: A statement that is an extreme exaggeration

Examples:
 "People moved slowly then. There was no hurry, for there
was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it
with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb
County.”
— from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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"I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was
quaking from head to foot, and could have hung my hat on
my eyes, they stuck out so far.”
— from “Old Times on the Mississippi” by Mark Twain
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Pun

Definition: A statement that suggests different meaning of the
words used because of their similar sounds for humorous
effect
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Examples:
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“Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”

“You have dancing shoes with nimble soles; I have a soul of
lead.”
— from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
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Paradox
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Definition: A statement that contains contradictory ideas but
proves to be well-founded or true
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Examples:

“I must be cruel to be kind.”
— from Hamlet by William Shakespeare
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“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
— from Animal Farm by George Orwell
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Sarcasm
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Definition: A statement used that means the opposite of what
is really meant in order to insult or provide humor
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Examples:
 A student gets a failing grade on a quiz after learning that
he did not get elected class president and says, “This day
just keeps getting better and better.”
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Your friends predicts that a baseball player on her favorite
team will not make an important catch. When it happens,
she says, “What a surprise!”
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Idiom

Definition: A statement that cannot be understood based on
the meanings of the individual words but has a separate
meaning of its own
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Examples
 I have to find a new mechanic. Getting my tire fixed at
Smith’s Auto cost me an arm and a leg!
 I thought that I would be able to handle being the
president of four clubs at school, but it’s obvious that I bit
off more than I can chew.
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Alliteration
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Definition: The repetition of the same initial consonant
sounds in words that are close together
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Examples:
 "My father brought to conversations a cavernous capacity
for caring that dismayed strangers.”
— from The Centaur by John Updike
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"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past.”
— from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Consonance

Definition: The repetition of the consonant sounds within or at
the end of words that are close together
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Examples
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“Let the boy try along this bayonet blade How cold steel is, and
keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman's
flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh”
— from “Arms and the Boy” by Wilfred Owen
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“I’ll swing by my ankles
She’ll cling to your knees
As you hang by your nose…”
— from “The Acrobats” by Shel Silverstein
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Assonance

Definition: The repetition of vowel sounds within or at the end
of words that are close together
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Examples:
 “So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems
came.”
— from “Early Moon” by Carl Sandburg
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“Hear the mellow wedding bells.”
— from “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe
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Onomatopoeia
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Definition: The use of a word whose sound imitates or
suggests its meaning

Example:
 “How they clang, and clash, and roar!”
— from “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe
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“He saw nothing and heard nothing but he could feel his
heart pounding and then he heard the clack on stone and
the leaping, dropping clicks of a small rock falling.”
— from For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
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Denotation and Connotation
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Denotation: The dictionary definition of a word

Example:
 Home – (n.) the place (such as a house or apartment)
where a person lives
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Connotation: All the meanings, associations, or emotions that
a word suggests

Example:
 The word home has a positive connotation and is used to
suggest family, security, and comfort.
 George loved the game of football so much that his
team’s practice field felt like home to him.
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Identify examples of figurative
language in the following poems.
1.
“A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(pg. 345)
2.
“from Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman (pg. 400)
3.
“anyone lived in a pretty how town” by E.E.
Cummings (pg. 412)
4.
“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost (pg. 1002)
5.
“The Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666” by Anne
Bradstreet (pg. 140)
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