Figurative Language
Personification---a non-human object does a human-like action or has a human-like quality Simile--compares two different nouns and the two nouns being compared are connected by either like, as, or sometimes than
Metaphor--compares two different nouns with often a linking verb is the connector Idiom--an expression that has two meanings--a literal meaning, which is silly and an interpreted meaning, which actually is meant
Hyperbole--an exaggeration of outrageous proportion
Similes from great pieces of literature:
She made her way to the far corner of the cell, eased herself down on the floor and was careful to avoid eye contact with anyone, but the fat girl was there like a picked scab, dodging into her frame of reference every two minutes
We watched the wind rip at earth and sea like a surging pack of terriers. -- Travels with Charley - Steinbeck, John - 1962
By the time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people. -- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The - Twain, Mark - 1884
I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage. -- Lord Jim - Conrad, Joseph - 1900
And she picked her words as one picks flowers in a mixed garden and took her time choosing. -- East of Eden - Steinbeck, John - 1952
They shot at him like a varmint, an’ he shot back, an’ then they run him like a coyote, an’ him a-snappin’ an’ a-snarlin’, mean as a lobo. -- Grapes of Wrath, The - Steinbeck, John - 1939
I'll smash them in heaps like flies. -- Lord Jim - Conrad, Joseph - 1900
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