Figurative Language Notes

1. Figurative Language Notes 7th Grade Language Arts

2. Figures of Speech • Figures of speech are words or phrases that describe one thing in terms of something else. • Figures of speech are not meant to be taken literally.

3. Figures of Speech

4. Metaphor A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things not using like or as. Example: Time is money Example: “Your world is as big as you make it. I know, for I used to abide In the narrowest nest in a corner, My wings pressing close to my side.” from “Your World” By Georgia Douglas Johnson

5. Simile A simile is a comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of the words like or as. Example: “Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like as driven nail.” from “Cremation of Sam McGee” By Robert Service

6. Personification Personification is a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics. Example: “The desert says: feel the sun luring you from your dark, sad waters, burst through the surface…” “Lesson 2” By Pat Mora

7. Pun A pun is a play on words that are similar in sound but have very different meanings. Example: I used to have a fear of hurdles, but I got over it. Example:Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

8. So Punny!

9. Oxymoron An oxymoron combines a pair of opposite words into a single, unusual expression. Example: “sweet sorrow” “jumbo shrimp” “act naturally” “clearly confused”

10. Idiom An idiom is a saying or expression that does not mean literally what it says. Idioms are some of the most difficult things to learn in a new language. Example: You are the “apple of my eye” ! That only happens once in a “blue moon”!