::Simile

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== Uses ==

In literature

• "Curley was flopping like a fish a line."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=citation }}.</ref> Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

• "The very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=citation }}.</ref>

• "Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus."<ref>{{citation|title = [[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar] Act I Scene II]|first = William|last == William Shakespeare|year = 1623}}.</ref>

In comedy

Similes are used extensively in British comedy, notably in the slapstick era of the 1960s and 70s. In comedy, the simile is often used in negative style, e.g. he was as daft as a brush. They are also used in comedic context where a sensitive subject is broached, and the comedian will test the audience with response to a subtle implicit simile before going deeper.<ref>Funnysimiles.com - A List of Funny Similes</ref>

Using "like"

A simile can explicitly provide the basis of a comparison or leave this basis implicit. In the implicit case the simile leaves the audience to determine for themselves which features of the target are being predicated. It may be a type of sentence that uses "as" or "like" to connect the words being compared.

• "For hope grew round me, like the twining vine" (Coleridge - Dejection)
• "And the executioner went off like an arrow."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=citation }}.</ref> Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

Using "as"

The use of "as" makes the simile more explicit

• He runs as fast as lightning.
• as shiny as a new pin.

The song Everything at Once by Lenka is also notable for the use of 18 similes with "as" in every verse.<ref>http://www.metrolyrics.com/everything-at-once-lyrics-lenka.html</ref>

Without 'like' or 'as'

Sometimes similes do not have any connecting words ('like' or 'as').<ref>A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices</ref>

• "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate:" William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
• "I'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park!" Mater, Cars
• "How this Herculean Roman does become / The carriage of his chafe." William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra' Act I, sc. 3.

See also

• Alliteration
• Analogy
• Description
• Hyperbole
• Hypocatastasis
• Metaphor
• Metonymy
• Personification

External links

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• "On Substantiation Through Transitive Relations" is an Arabic manuscript from 1805 by Sayf al-Din al-Amidi which discusses similes
• Simile Examples and definition[[Category:Descriptive technique]
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