Figurative Language

What is Figurative Language?

Within English, which covers grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, poetry, drama and the skills for clear communication, this topic explains Figurative Language. English topics help you read closely and write with purpose, so each one here explains a skill and shows how it works in a model text.

Check that you can explain Figurative Language in your own words and give one example from everyday life. If you can do that, you have understood the core idea.

Understanding Figurative Language helps you read texts more closely and write with more control, which earns marks in both reading and writing papers.

Figurative Language in detail

Figurative language uses words beyond their literal meaning to create effect. A simile compares using "like" or "as" (as brave as a lion). A metaphor says one thing is another (the world is a stage). Personification gives human qualities to non-human things (the wind whispered), and hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration (I've told you a million times).

Other devices include oxymoron, symbolism and idiom. Writers use them to make descriptions vivid, to express emotions and to suggest ideas in a fresh way. When analysing, identify the device, quote it, and explain the effect on the reader.

How the interactive helps you understand Figurative Language

Click a card to flip it and reveal the answer, then move on to the next one.

Before you change anything, predict the result. Then change one value at a time and check whether your prediction was right. This is a quick way to build a correct mental model of Figurative Language.

Real-life uses and examples

• Use Figurative Language to make your own writing more precise and vivid.
• Support a point about Figurative Language with a short, accurate quotation.
• Plan an essay paragraph by linking the technique to the reader’s response.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Quoting a long passage instead of picking a short, precise phrase.
• Naming a technique without explaining its effect on the reader.
• Learning the definition without testing it. Use the quiz and the interactive to check that you can apply the idea.