by Mel Mcintyre

Created on: November 09, 2010

A simile is a figure of speech that compares two unrelated things or objects by ascribing attributes of one thing to the other. The idea is to make a connection between the two in a way that adds a new dimension or another layer of meaning. This is normally done with the use of the words “like” or “as.”

For example, Robert Burns’ poem A Red, Red Rose opens with these lines:

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That’s sweetly play'd in tune.

Here Burns is comparing his partner to a glorious red rose, fresh and fragrant, full of colour and life. He emphasizes the depth and power of her beauty with the repetition of the word “red.” She’s also as sweet as a tuneful melody, easy on the ear and a pleasure to listen to.

Similes are common in everyday language, too. You might say someone is as fit as a fiddle, or drinks like a fish. Your friend might be as tall as a giraffe, or as skinny as a rake. After washing the dishes you might have hands like prunes; you might sleep like a baby; you might be as smart as a whip.

Similes help reinforce character through the act of direct comparison. If you say someone sings well, that’s not as impressive as saying they have a voice like an angel. Someone might be described as cute, but if you say they’re as cute as a button you’re giving them additional points in the cuteness department.

A Simile is Like a Metaphor

Similes differ from metaphors in a number of ways. Metaphors are typically shorter, more compressed comparisons. In a simile, two things share a quality, while in a metaphor these qualities are fused. Metaphorically speaking we might say he is an ox, while the corresponding simile would advocate that he is like an ox.

This couplet from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is clearly a simile, descriptive of how the deceased Juliet appears when eventually discovered:

Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner is flooded with similes, such as the following two examples:

As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

Figures of Speech

Of course, great writers use both metaphors and similes as their needs require. For instance, this is a simile found in T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock:

Let us go then, you and I, 
When the evening is spread out against the sky 
Like a patient etherised upon a table; 

While later in the same poem there’s a powerful metaphor comparing fog to a member of the feline family:

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes 
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, 
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, 
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, 
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 
And seeing that it was a soft October night, 
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

Similes can sometimes be made without “like” or “as” by employing the word “than” as in the following examples:

* Flatter than a pancake
* Hotter than the sun
* Bigger than a breadbox

These are all comparisons that assign attributes in the usual way, but tend to lie on the outer boundaries of exaggeration. They’re not similes as we normally think of them, but they’re similar - comparatively speaking.

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