Examples of Figurative Language
Six sleek swans swam swiftly southward.
Alliteration
an extreme exaggeration
Hyperbole
"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly."
-Langston Hughes
Metaphor
I'm over the moon!
Idiom
a commonly used expression that doesn’t mean what it literally implies
Idiom
Fog
"The fog comes
on little cat feet."
-Carl Sandburg
Personification
She's as hungry as a wolf
Simile
giving human-like qualities to nonhuman things
Personification
Flint
"An emerald is as green as grass,
Ruby as red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
A flint lies in the mud."
-Christina Rossetti
Simile
"Clang!"
Onomatopoeia
A comparison of two unlike things
Simile
Honor
"Honor dreams of the many sadnesses it has of the children that are terrified of war.
It thinks about why many bad things happen to soldiers in combat.."
-Unknown
Personification
The sun smiled at them.
Personification
repeated beginning consonant sounds in a series of words
Alliteration
Gone
"Trust is a shiny crystal sheet of glass ,
not something to take advantage of..."
-Unknown
Metaphor