Paint a Picture with Figurative Language

Figurative language uses words to engage the senses, memories, and imagination of the reader through a variety of literary devices, including the following:

• Simile is a comparison using like or as:
  Sonny Liston jabbed like a jackhammer.
• Metaphor is a comparison not using like or as:
  The public defender was buried beneath his caseload.
• Personification is the attribution of human qualities to a nonhuman being or object:
  The tornado ravaged the city like an angry mob.
• Paradox is the juxtaposition of two apparently contradictory ideas:
  A baby is a new life; for parents, it’s also the end of their old life.
• Hyperbole is an exaggeration used to drive home a point:
  Mark lived life at a 100 miles an hour.
• Allusion is a reference to something outside of the text that the audience probably knows about:
  The adrenaline rush infused onlookers with Herculean strength, enabling them to lift the car off of the injured driver.
• Idiom is a common expression whose meaning has little or no connection with its literal meaning. For example, the phrase “keep your nose to the grindstone” doesn’t literally mean to do so, it means to focus on your work. A word of caution: use idiomatic expressions sparingly, if at all, in formal writing.