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A list of metaphors in the English language organised alphabetically by type. A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels".
The word metaphor itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek term meaning 'transference (of ownership)'. The user of a metaphor alters the reference of the word, "carrying" it from one semantic "realm" to another. The new meaning of the word might derive from an analogy between the two semantic realms, but also from other reasons such as the ...
ŋɛu như ɲɯ con kɔn mèo mɛu / Nghèo như con mèo / ŋɛu ɲɯ kɔn mɛu / "Poor as a cat" Whereas the above Vietnamese example is of a rhyming simile, the English simile "(as) poor as a church mouse" is only a semantic simile. See also For a list of words relating to similes, see the English similes category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Alliteration Analogy Description ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse-speaking Viking invaders and settlers, starting in the 8th and 9th centuries.
The easiest stylistic device to identify is a simile, signaled by the use of the words "like" or "as". A simile is a comparison used to attract the reader's attention and describe something in descriptive terms. Example: "From up here on the fourteenth floor, my brother Charley looks like an insect scurrying among other insects." (from "Sweet ...
A Dictionary of Similes is a dictionary of similes written by the American writer and newspaperman Frank J. Wilstach. In 1916, Little, Brown and Company in Boston published Wilstach's A Dictionary of Similes, a compilation he had been working on for more than 20 years. It included more than 15,000 examples from more than 800 authors, indexing ...
The couple metaphor-metonymy had a prominent role in the renewal of the field of rhetoric in the 1960s. In his 1956 essay, "The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles", Roman Jakobson describes the couple as representing the possibilities of linguistic selection (metaphor) and combination (metonymy); Jakobson's work became important for such French ...