Simile
A figure of speech that compares unlike things, often using “like” or “as,” to highlight a shared quality.
Tenor and vehicle: The tenor is what a figure of speech describes; the vehicle is the image used to describe it. A simile connects a subject to an image through a stated point of comparison.
Metaphor: A figure of speech that describes one thing as another to suggest a resemblance. Unlike a typical simile, a metaphor states or implies identity rather than marking likeness with “like” or “as.”
Epic simile: An extended comparison in epic poetry, often developed over several lines. It expands the brief comparison of a simile into a sustained scene.
Aristotle: An ancient Greek philosopher whose works shaped Western thought on logic, poetry, and rhetoric. His Poetics discusses simile in relation to metaphor and poetic expression.
Homeric simile: An extended epic comparison, especially one modeled on the elaborate similes of Homer’s poems. It is the best-known named form of the extended simile.
Ground of comparison: The shared quality or relation that makes a comparison meaningful. The ground explains which feature the simile asks its audience to notice.
Personification: A figure of speech that gives human traits or actions to nonhuman things. Personification attributes human qualities, while a simile can compare things without making them human.
Cliché: An overused expression whose familiarity has weakened its force or originality. Repeated similes can become clichés, such as “busy as a bee.”
Poetics: Aristotle’s treatise on poetry, tragedy, epic, and the principles of literary composition. It offers an early influential account of how simile relates to metaphor.
Shakespearean simile: A simile used in a work by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays and poems use similes to sharpen character, mood, and description.