Examples of figures of speech, including some from literature

1. English 11: Periods 4,5,7,9

2.  An expressive use of language in which words
are used in other than their literal sense for
special effect or emphasis

3.  Her eyes twinkled like stars.
 He was as tough as a bull.

4.  The road was a ribbon of
moonlight.
 We would have had more pizza
to eat if Tammy hadn’t been such
a hog.

5.  Verbal, situational, and dramatic irony
 Saying “I’m NOT upset!” while clearly
being upset
 Smokers in front of a “No Smoking” sign
 Making fun of someone for stepping in a
puddle and then stepping in one
yourself

6.  Julius Caesar: Cowards die many times
before their deaths. (Act II, scene ii : line
32)
 Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but
some animals are more equal than
others."

7.  You could have knocked me over with a
feather.
 James Ramsey Ullman’s “A Boy and a
Man”: “It was not a mere man he was
holding, but a giant; or a block of
granite.”

8. Robert Browning’s “Meeting at Night”:
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match.

9.  Robert Frost’s “Acquainted With the Night”:
I have stood still and stopped the sound of
feet…
 Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”:
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood
there
wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming
dreams no mortal ever dared to dream
before

10.  Free and easy
 Make the grade

11.  I dropped the locket in the thick mud.
 Gerard Manly Hopkins’ “God’s
Grandeur”: And all is seared with trade;
bleared smeared with toil;

12.  “You stupid chair!”
 John Donne’s “The Rising Sun”:
Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call
on us?

13.  Passing away instead of dying
 Laid off instead of fired

14.  Clearly confused
 Controlled chaos
 Deliberate mistake
 “Always be sincere, even when you don’t
mean it.” –Irene Peter

15.  John Steinbeck’s “Flight”:
“A scar of green grass cut across the flat. And
behind the flat another mountain
rose, desolate with dead rocks and starving
little black bushes . . .”
 James Stephens’s “The Wind”:
“The wind stood up and gave a shout. He
whistled on his two fingers . . . ”

16.  Saying “We’ve had a bit of wind today”
after a hurricane
 Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Tis
but a scratch!” when his limbs are cut off

17.  In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, animals
represent Communist Russia
 In The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan
represents a Christ figure

18.  Coleridge’s “The Ancient Mariner”:
“In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud”

19.  Notion/nation
 Bear/bore
 Ear/are

20.  Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
. . . Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

21.  Christy didn't like to spend money. She
was no Scrooge, but she seldom
purchased anything except the bare
necessities.

22.  William Wordsworth’s “Daffodils”:
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 stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

23.  Colors, seasons, nature, weather, animal
s, clothing, objects, etc.