simile
Simile is a figure that openly pairs two things with like or as; foil to metaphor without that marker and to personification.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- ling. / rhet. / lit. Trope: an open pairing of two things, events, or situations, usually with like, as, or a similar likeness marker. Axis: explicit signalling of likeness, not a hidden metaphor transfer and not a personhood grant in personification.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - hist. lex. Lexicon notes: Webster 1913 marks SIMILE (Rhet.) and under METAPHOR splits like a fox from is a fox; Skeat 1910 indexes SIMILE from L. simile; Arct 1921 keeps Comparatio and Omne simile claudicat; Brückner 1927 indexes porównać (p. 464) without a rhetorical lemma.
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Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (SIMILE; METAPHOR note); W. W. Skeat 1910 (SIMILE); M. Arct 1921 (Comparatio; Komparacja; Omne simile claudicat); A. Brückner 1927 (porównać; porównawczy p. 464), open source - didact. / rhet. In teaching, simile sits beside metaphor, personification, allegory, irony, and hyperbole: metaphor hides the marker, personification grants human traits, allegory develops an image chain, simile keeps like / as on the surface. Border scope needs review.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - colloq. Everyday talk may dump any pairing under this tag. This entry holds one rhetorical axis: deliberate, open signalling of likeness (usually with like or as), foil to a hidden metaphor transfer and foil to a personhood grant in personification.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Examples
- A line where the night was like velvet is textbook simile (open marker like); a neighbour filed velvet night and lost the open-pairing axis for a metaphor.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The morning block drilled simile; metaphor notes returned as the no-marker foil, and personification stood beside as granting human traits to a non-personal carrier.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Reading list: the 1913 Webster SIMILE card and the METAPHOR note, Skeat 1910 under SIMILE, the 1921 Arct Comparatio / Omne simile claudicat set, and Brückner 1927 (porównać / porównawczy at p. 464).
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Treating every simile as plain metaphor erased the open-marker-versus-hidden-transfer split at once.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - Board order: simile, metaphor, personification, irony, so open pairing stayed apart from hidden transfer, from a personhood grant, and from sense reversal.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Usage
Casual talk may stamp any pairing as simile with no named axis. Seminar work peels layers: open pairing of two things (usually with like or as); metaphor as foil (transfer without the marker); personification as foil (human traits on a non-personal carrier); plus lexicon notes. Webster keeps SIMILE. Skeat under SIMILE points to L. simile (neutrum of similis) and to SIMILAR. Arct keeps Comparatio and Omne simile claudicat. Brückner indexes porównać beside równy (p. 464) without a dedicated rhetorical lemma. Without those layers only an empty pairing slogan remains.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Open-book record. The 1913 Webster volume marks the noun SIMILE (Rhet.) and, on the METAPHOR card, keeps the like-a-fox example apart from the is-a-fox example. Skeat indexes SIMILE to Latin similis via the neuter form meaning a like thing, with a cross-reference to SIMILAR; SIMILITUDE sits nearby. The 1921 Arct volume keeps Comparatio and Komparacja for porównanie and records Omne simile claudicat; the 1927 Brückner volume indexes porównać and porównawczy at p. 464. Facts here; derivation under etymology.
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Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (SIMILE; METAPHOR); W. W. Skeat 1910 (SIMILE; SIMILAR); M. Arct 1921 (Comparatio; Omne simile claudicat); A. Brückner 1927 (porównać; porównawczy), open sourceScholarly English marks open likeness signalling with like or as. Careful editors discard worksheets that treat every metaphor as a simile and discard glosses that never name the open-marker axis. The simile / metaphor / personification border stays debated in seminars. Chronology of the label stays blank until a primary source page is cited. Polish counterpart: porównanie (SGJP present).
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Classrooms revisit open-pairing talk in tropes and set simile against metaphor, personification, allegory, irony, euphemism, hyperbole, litotes, metonymy, synecdoche, rhetoric, and semantics. CMUdict lacks the simile lemma (editorial IPA from similar / facsimile segments). Polish porównanie sits in SGJP. Live neighbours include those tropes plus oxymoron. Without the open-marker axis the label collapses.
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Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (SIMILE); CMUdict (simile absent; similar / facsimile present); SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (porównanie present), open sourceWord forms
Countable noun: singular simile / plural similes. Related forms in Skeat/Webster: similar, similitude. CMUdict lemma absent.
forms in use
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | simile |
| plural | similes |
| related adjective | similar (Skeat SIMILAR; Webster) |
| related noun | similitude (Skeat SIMILITUDE; Webster) |
Word forms: Editorial team; facts: Webster 1913 (SIMILE; SIMILITUDE); W. W. Skeat 1910 (SIMILE; SIMILAR; SIMILITUDE); CMUdict (simile absent) · source
Collocations
- literary simile
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - simile with like or as
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - simile versus metaphor
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - open pairing of two things
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - distinguish simile from personification
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team; facts: SGJP / Morfeusz 2 (porównanie present); M. Arct 1921 (Comparatio), open sourcesource
Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910 (SIMILE: L. simile, neut. of similis; see Similar), open sourcealso
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 (SIMILE; METAPHOR note: like a fox vs is a fox), open sourcealso
M. Arct, Słownik wyrazów obcych, 9th ed., Warsaw 1921 (Comparatio; Komparacja; Omne simile claudicat), open sourcealso
A. Brückner, Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, Kraków 1927 (porównać; porównawczy p. 464), open sourceRelated words
- metaphor , foil along the marker axis (hidden transfer, no like / as); EN pair already live
- personification , foil along the personhood axis (human traits on a non-personal carrier); EN pair already live
- allegory , foil along the construct axis (image chain); EN pair already live
- irony , trope neighbour; EN pair already live
- euphemism , trope neighbour (etiquette softening); EN pair already live
- hyperbole , foil along the scale axis (overstatement); EN pair already live
- litotes , trope neighbour (understatement); EN pair already live
- metonymy , trope neighbour (contiguity transfer); EN pair already live
- synecdoche , trope neighbour (part for whole); EN pair already live
- oxymoron , trope neighbour (contrary pair); EN pair already live
- rhetoric , domain of tropes; EN pair already live
- semantics , sense and transfer neighbour; EN pair already live
- porównanie , Polish counterpart (SGJP present; Arct Comparatio; Webster SIMILE)
Related entries
The same entry in Polish: porównanie
Questions and answers
What does simile mean?
The word names an explicit likeness pairing of two members, usually marked by like or as. Metaphor hides the marker. Personification grants personal traits. Allegory stays at an image chain. Irony reverses sense.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)How does simile differ from metaphor?
Simile keeps like or as on the surface. Metaphor transfers likeness without that signal. Casual speech blurs them often; the openness axis of the pairing differs clearly in seminars.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)How does simile differ from personification?
Simile openly pairs two members with like or as. Personification grants personal traits to an object, phenomenon, or abstract idea. That is the axis foil, not a synonym.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word simile come from, and what forms sit with it?
Skeat 1910 ties SIMILE to L. simile (neuter of similis) and to SIMILAR; SIMILITUDE sits nearby. Webster 1913 marks SIMILE (Rhet.) and the METAPHOR like/is split. Arct 1921: Comparatio; Omne simile claudicat. Brückner 1927 indexes porównać at p. 464. Forms: simile / similes. IPA editorial (CMU absent): /ˈsɪməli/. Polish pair: porównanie (SGJP present).