Simile

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Revision as of 05:40, 4 December 2006 by 146.151.14.17 (Talk)

(diff) ← Older revision | Current revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

For other uses, see Simile (disambiguation).

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. "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", "In terms of beauty, she was every bit Cleopatra's match", and "the lullaby was like the hush of the winter."

Similes are composed of two parts: comparandum, the thing to be compared, and the comparatum, the thing to which the comparison is made. For example in the simile "The snow was like a blanket", "the snow" is the comparandum while "a blanket" is the comparatum.

The phrase "The snow was a blanket over the earth" is a metaphor. 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.

1 Examples of similes from literary works
2 Examples of similes from songs
3 Examples of similes in everyday speech
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Examples of similes from literary works

Behind them the porpoises left a trail of great bubbles that rocked and shone briefly like miniature moons before vanishing under the ripples. —Gerald Figueroa
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
Like a june bug in December, I say ... —Jason Jennings Jones
Solitude...is like Spanish moss which finally suffocates the tree it hangs on —NAnaïs 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
Happy as pigs in mud — David Eddings
It whirred like water at a mill — Transl. by Burton Raffel
As joyous as a daybreak...-Martin L. King

[edit] Examples of similes from songs

Cheaper than a hot dog with no mustard - Beastie Boys
You are as subtle as a brick to the small of my back - Brand New & Taking Back Sunday
Put your arms around me like a circle 'round the sun - Will Shade (Memphis Jug Band)
My heart is like an open highway - Jon Bon Jovi
Thick as a Brick - Jethro Tull
She got dumps like a truck - Sisqó
These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall - Led Zeppelin
Like a June Bug in December - Jason Jones
It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog - The Beatles
He started howlin’ like a monsoon wind - Bruce Springsteen
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle - Irina Dunn

((This simile was originally penned by an Australian editor, journalist, and educator, Irina Dunn, who scribbled it on the walls of two bathrooms in Australia, and it spread around the world from there. (Interestingly, she was actually co-opting the so-called "Vique's Law," which states that 'Man needs Religion like a fish needs a bicycle.') Gloria Steinem popularized the phrase, 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,' during her work in the Women's Rights Movement, but duly cited her source, Irina Dunn, in a letter to Time magazine in 2000. U2's Bono also used the phrase, many years later, in the song Tryin' toThrow Your Arms Around the World.))

Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
Free as a bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Like a bat out of hell - Meat Loaf
It makes no sense waiting the team risen, like Pakistan and India liberated by Britain - Vinnie Paz (rapper)
I know that I must do what's right, as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti - Toto
I shake and reveal stage tricks like Jimi Hendrix - The Streets

[edit] Examples of similes in everyday speech

There are countless examples of similies 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.