Figurative Language

Language that means something other than it literally says.

Figurative language says one thing to mean another. Recognising it requires noticing that a literal reading fails.

The main figures

• Simile compares using like or as.
• Metaphor states the comparison as identity, with no signal word.
• Personification gives human qualities to something not human.
• Hyperbole exaggerates deliberately and expects not to be believed.
• Idiom carries a fixed meaning that its words do not supply.

The distinction that gets missed

Idioms are conventional and must be learned as units; metaphors are constructed and can be understood on first encounter by anyone who sees the comparison. That is why idioms are the harder category for second-language readers.