Figurative Language

What is figurative language?

• Any figure of speech — a statement or phrase not intended to be understood literally.

• Uses figures of speech (such as similes, metaphors and clichés) to suggest new pictures or images, or to create stronger effects.

• The use of words in a way that deviates from the conventional order and meaning in order to convey a complicated meaning, colorful writing, clarity, or evocative comparison.

• A way of expressing oneself that does not use a word's strict or realistic meaning.

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CCSS.L.3.5A

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What is a simile?

• A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid.

• A phrase that uses a comparison to describe.

• A figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as compare metaphors.

• A simile is a literary device that compares two things in an interesting and vivid way. Words such as “like” and “as” are used to compare the two subjects.

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What is a metaphor?

• A figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn't literally true, but helps explain an idea or make a comparison.

• It compares things without using prepositions such as “like” or “as” it is a metaphor.

• A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

• Helps readers understand, pay attention, remember and act on messages.

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What is personification?

• A type of metaphor that gives human characteristics to inanimate objects and animals, such as emotions and behaviors.

• Emphasize a non-human's characteristics by describing them with human attributes.

• The representation of a thing or idea as a person or by the human form.

• The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

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CCSS.L.6.5A

What is hyperbole?

• Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

• An intentional exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect.

• A rhetorical and literary technique where an author or speaker intentionally uses exaggeration and overstatement for emphasis and effect.

• Extravagant exaggeration used to emphasize a point.

Tags

CCSS.L.11-12.5A

What is allusion?

• Brief but purposeful references, within a literary text, to a person, place, event, or to another work of literature.

• An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.

• An implied or indirect reference especially in literature.

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CCSS.L.7.5A

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What is imagery?

• Visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work.

• A literary device used in poetry, novels, and other writing that uses vivid description that appeals to a readers' senses to create an image or idea in their head.

• The art of making images.

• The formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things.

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CCSS.L.4.5

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What is an idiom?

• A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words

• An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but must be learned as a whole.

• An expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements

• A phrase that actually means something different from its literal meaning.

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CCSS.L.4.5B

CCSS.L.5.5B

What is an oxymoron?

• A self-contradicting word or group of words.

• An oxymoron is a self-contradicting word or group of words.

• A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

• A figure of speech that combines contradictory words with opposing meanings.

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CCSS.L.9-10.5A

What is an onomatopoeia?

• The forming of a word by imitating the sound of the word.

• The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.

• A word that names a sound, but also sounds like that sound.

• The naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it.

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