Figurative Language

(Figuratively Speaking)(Wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

Simile

• A comparison of two unlike things using “like or “as”

Examples:*She was as mean as a snake.*His singing voice was like finger nails on a chalkboard.

Metaphor

• An implied comparison that does not use the words “like” or “as”

Monday - My heart's on fire

Wednesday - She is his latest flame

Sunday - I don't want to get burned again

Personification

• Giving human traits to nonhuman things

The flowers begged for water.

The moon looked down on the sleepy city.

Alliteration

• The repetition of the same consonant sound or sounds at the beginning of a group of words

…the sweet smell of success

The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow

Assonance

• The repetition of the same vowel sound within nearby words

“The bows glided down, and the coast Blackened with birds took a last look At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck.”

Assonance is involved in "bows" (pronounced "boughs") and "down"; "blackened," "last," "thrashing," "hair," "whale," and "rang"; "took" and "look"; and "trodden" and "cobbles." (In passing one might also note the pattern of ALLITERATION in this stanza and that the RHYMING of look with luck is an example of consonance.)

The Ballad of the long-legged Bait - Dylan Thomas

*Try to light the fire. *He gave a nod to the officer with the pocket. *fleet feet sweep by sleeping Greeks. *Hayden plays a lot.

Consonance• Consonance is the repetition, at close intervals, of the final consonants of accented syllables or important words ,

especially at the ends of words, as in blank and think or strong and string or Lady lounges lazily and Dark deep dread.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningbyRobert Frost (1874-1963)Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Onomatopoeia

• Words whose sounds suggest their meaning

Hyperbole

• An exaggeration

I nearly died laughing!

It was hotter than the sun!

I told you at least a million times!

I wouldn’t do that for all the tea in

China!

Synecdoche (si-nek-duh-kee)

• A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword).

All hands on deck with yer steel you salty dogs or I’ll throw you all in the brig!

Idiom• A fixed distinctive expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the

combined meanings of its actual words

Chip on his Shoulder: Angry today about something that occurred in the past.

Close but no Cigar: To be very near and almost accomplish a goal, but fall short.

Hit The Hay: Go to bed or go to sleep.

On The Fence: Undecided.

Not Playing With a Full Deck: Someone who lacks intelligence

Chow Down: To eat.

Charley Horse: Stiffness in the leg / A leg cramp.

Mum's the word: To keep quiet. To say nothing.

Bats in her belfry: To be crazy

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD" I WANDERED lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and

hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils; beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way, they stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay:ten thousand saw I at a glance,tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves

in glee: a poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought what wealth the show to me had

brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood,they flash upon that inward eyewhich is the bliss of solitude;and then my heart with pleasure fillsand dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

Now, use what you know about figurative language, and find an example of each term in this poem.