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SIMILE
A simile is a figure of speech in which the subject is compared to another subject. Frequently, similes are marked by use of the words like or as or so. "The snow was like a blanket". However, "The snow blanketed the earth" is also a simile and not a metaphor because the verb blanketed is a shortened form of the phrase covered like a blanket. A few other examples are "The deer ran like the wind", "The raindrops sounded as popcorn kernels popping", and "the lullaby was like the hush of the winter."
The phrase "The snow was a blanket over the earth" is the metaphor in this case. Metaphors differ from similes in that the two objects are not compared, but treated as identical, "We are but a moment's sunlight, fading in the grass." Note: Some would argue that a simile is actually a specific type of metaphor. See Joseph Kelly's The Seagull Reader (2005), pages 377-379.
See also tertium comparationis.
Simile is an Italian musical term meaning "similarly"; it indicates that the performer should continue to apply the preceding directive, whatever it was. For example, a series of dynamic changes to be repeated in many measures would make the music crowded and harder to read if written out in full, so the engraver might insert a simile directive after the first measure of the changes. The performer would then know to continue the dynamic pattern in the following measures.
Examples of Similes from Literary Works
- Behind them the porpoises left a trail of great bubbles that rocked and shone briefly like minature moons before vanishing under the ripples. —Gerald Durrell
- Suspicion climbed all over her face, like a kitten, but not so playfully —Raymond Chandler
- Love is like the devil; whom it has in its clutches it surrounds with flames —Honoré de Balzac
- Exuding good will like a mortician's convention in a plague year —Daniel Berrigan
- Guiltless forever, like a tree —Robert Browning
- Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean —Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- As good as gold —Charles Dickens
- Yellow butterflies flickered along the shade like flecks of sun —William Faulkner
- Woo the moon like the tide —Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Death has many times invited me: it was like the salt invisible in the waves —Pablo Neruda
- Solitude...is like Spanish moss which finally suffocates the tree it hangs on —Anaïs Nin
- Jubilant as a flag unfurled —Dorothy Parker
- Wide sleeves fluttering like wings —Marcel Proust
- Death lies on her, like an untimely frost —William Shakespeare
- The trees wavered their stark shadows across the snow like supplicating arms —Leo Tolstoy
- A mouth drawn in like a miser's purse —Émile Zola
- A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle; Irina Dunn, 1970
- Happy as pigs in mud — David Eddings
- Larger than life; Umme salama
Examples of Similes from Songs
Examples of Similes
There are countless examples of similes used in everyday speech. Below is a list of examples, but not by any means an exhaustive account, as there are too many examples to list.
- busy as a bee
- clear as a bell
- cold as ice
- cute as a button
- dry as a bone
- dead as a doornail
- dumb as a post
- easy as pie
- as fast as lightning
- fit as a fiddle
- free as a bird
- happy as a clam
- high as a kite
- larger than life
- light as a feather
- mad as hell
- plain as day
- proud as a peacock
- as loyal as a dog
- quick as a wink
- right as rain
- sharper than a tack
- sick as a dog
- smooth as silk
- snug as a bug in a rug
- solid as a rock
- sure as eggs
- tough as nails
- white as snow
- working like a dog
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