simile — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A figure of speech in which one thing is explicitly compared to another, using e.g. like or as.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • rhetoric
   • Uncountable

   Antonyms

   dissimile

   Broader terms

   figure of speech

   Examples

   More examples (3)

   He made a simile of George the third to Nebuchadnezzar, and of the prince regent to Belshazzar, and insisted that the prince represented the latter in not paying much attention to what had happened to kings […]

   The second was a fancy, which amounts to a mania, for similes, strung together in endless lists, and derived as a rule from animals, vegetables, or minerals, especially from the Fauna and Flora of fancy.

   What follows should be prefaced with some simile—the simile of a powder-mine, a thunderbolt, an earthquake—for it blew Philip up in the air and flattened him on the ground and swallowed him up in the depths.

   My father is a quiet man / With sober, steady ways; / For simile, a folded fan; / His nights are like his days.

2. Similarity or resemblance to something else; likeness, similitude.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

3. Something similar that's not a clone.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

Noun

1. a figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds (usually formed with ‘like’ or ‘as’)

   Broader terms

   tropefigure of speechfigureimage