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"A picture is worth a thousand words" is an adage in multiple languages meaning that complex and sometimes multiple ideas [1] can be conveyed by a single still image, which conveys its meaning or essence more effectively than a mere verbal description.
A simile (/ ˈ s ɪ m əl i /) is a type of figure of speech that directly compares two things. [1] [2] Similes are often contrasted with metaphors, where similes necessarily compare two things using words such as "like", "as", while metaphors often create an implicit comparison (i.e. saying something "is" something else). However, there are ...
As easy as pie" is a popular colloquial idiom and simile which is used to describe a task or experience as pleasurable and simple. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The phrase is often interchanged with piece of cake , which shares the same connotation.
Literal and figurative language is a distinction that exists in all natural languages; it is studied within certain areas of language analysis, in particular stylistics, rhetoric, and semantics. Literal language is the usage of words exactly according to their direct, straightforward, or conventionally accepted meanings: their denotation.
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).
Paronomasia: pun in which similar-sounding words but words having a different meaning are used. Pathetic fallacy: ascribing human conduct and feelings to nature. Personification: attributing or applying human qualities to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena. Pleonasm: the use of more words than is necessary for clear expression.
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven (John Milton, in Paradise Lost) [8] Be yourself; Better the Devil you know (than the Devil you do not) Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all; Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness; Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt ...
A list of metaphors in the English language organised alphabetically by type. A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g.,