1. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE - SET 1 Print Form
SIMILE - METAPHOR - TENOR - VEHICLE - HYPERBOLE - UNDERSTATEMENT
PERSONIFICATION - ALLITERATION - ALLEGORY
Determine what figurative language is occurring within the following examples.
If the example is a simile or metaphor, then record the tenor and vehicle.
Paul fights like a lion.
Simile Metaphor Tenor Paul is being compared to a lion Vehicle What is it being compared to?
1 Personification
Alliteration
What is being personified?
What words are alliterated?
What human quality is it given?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane."
2
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration spake, sailor ad put, port
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
Her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.
Simile Metaphor Tenor her eye of ice Vehicle What is it being compared to?
3
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls
Simile Metaphor Tenor his fall is being compared to a thunder bolt What is it being compared to?
Vehicle
4
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?

2. 0 Time, thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
5
Personification time to be able to listen
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
6
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole nothing now can ever come to any good
He was eager to help but his legs were rubber.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
7
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
An Army officer has just lost his leg. When asked how he feels, he looks down at his bloody
stump and responds, "Stings a bit."
8
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement the wound he just got,says it just stings a bit
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?

3. "I have to have this operation. It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain."
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
9
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
My teacher is so old, he personally knew Shakespeare.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
10 Personification
Alliteration
What is being personified?
What words are alliterated?
What human quality is it given?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
Just as the clouds sailed over the sky, I left my home behind.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
11
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
"Life is an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep."
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
12
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?

4. "She sells sea shells by the seashore."
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
13 Personification
Alliteration
What is being personified?
What words are alliterated?
What human quality is it given?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
Her fingers felt like a dead person's, like an old peach I once
found in the back of the refrigerator.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
14 Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
"Hope" is the thing with feathers- That perches in the soul-
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
15 Alliteration
Understatement
What words are alliterated?
What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
A cold stormy rain set in, and nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs,
which the wind was stealing.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
16 Personification
Alliteration
What is being personified?
What words are alliterated?
What human quality is it given?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?

5. She'd come again, and with a greedy ear to devour up my secrets.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
17 Personification
Alliteration
What is being personified?
What words are alliterated?
What human quality is it given?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
There is no world without the city walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element?
18
Vehicle What is it being compared to?
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
Alliteration What words are alliterated?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
"I think of you a million times a day"
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
Personification What is being personified? What human quality is it given?
19 Alliteration
Understatement
What words are alliterated?
What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?
A captain of an airplane said to the passengers, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your
captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped."
Simile Metaphor Tenor What is the literal element? Vehicle What is it being compared to?
20 Personification
Alliteration
What is being personified?
What words are alliterated?
What human quality is it given?
Understatement What is being understated?
Hyperbole What is being exaggerated?