Striking Similes, Page 2 (C-D-E)

This section of EnhanceMyVocabulary.com focuses on similes. Writers and speakers use similes to make descriptions more emphatic and vivid.


Similes, figures of speech that are a subset of metaphors, involve comparing one thing with another thing of a different kind, using the words "like" or "as". Writers and speakers use similes to make descriptions more emphatic or vivid.

Study these similes to better understand what these figures of speech are and how you might use them. Consider using these similes or those of your own creation in creative writing.

(A good source on why and how to use metaphors -- include their subset similes -- in creative writing is Purdue University's Online Writing Lab [OWL].)

C

Calm as the night

Calm like a flowing river

Calm like a mountain brooding o'er the sea

Calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders

Cast thy voice abroad like thunder

Charm upon charm in her was packed, like rose-leaves in a costly vase

Chaste as the icicle

Cheeks as soft as July peaches

Chill breath of winter

Choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity

Cities scattered over the world like ant-hills

Cities that rise and sink like bubbles

Clear and definite like the glance of a child or the voice of a girl

Clear as a forest pool

Clear as crystal

Clenched little hands like rumpled roses, dimpled and dear

Cloud-like that island hung afar

Clouds like the petals of a rose

Cloudy mirror of opinion

Cold and hard as steel

Cold as the white rose waking at daybreak

Cold, glittering monotony like frosting around a cake

Collapsed like a concertina

Colored like a fairy tale

Companionless as the last cloud of an expiring storm whose thunder is its knell

Consecration that like a golden thread runs through the warp and woof of one's life

Constant as gliding waters

Contending like ants for little molehill realms

Continuous as the stars that shine

Cowslips, like chance-found gold

Creeds like robes are laid aside

Creeping like a snail, unwillingly to school

Cruel as death

Curious as a lynx

Cuts into the matter as with a pen of fire


D

Dainty as flowers

Dance like a wave of the sea

Dark and deep as night

Dark as pitch

Dark trees bending together as though whispering secrets

Dazzling white as snow in sunshine

Deafening and implacable as some elemental force

Dear as remembered kisses after death

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes

Dearer than night to the thief

Debasing fancies gather like foul birds

Deep as the fathomless sea

Deep dark well of sorrow

Delicate as nymphs

Delicate as the flush on a rose or the sculptured line on a Grecian urn

Denominational lines like stone walls

Dependency had dropped from her like a cast-off cloak

Despondency clung to him like a garment that is wet

Destructive as the lightning flash

Die like flies

Dip and surge lightly to and fro, like the red harbor-buoy

Disappearing into distance like a hazy sea

Dissatisfaction had settled on his mind like a shadow

Dissolve like some unsubstantial vision faded

Do make a music like to rustling satin

Dogging them like their own shadow

Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale like water bubbling from a silver jar?

Drop like a feather, softly to the ground

Drowned like rats

Dull as champagne


E

Each like a corpse within its grave

Each moment was an iridescent bubble fresh-blown from the lips of fancy

Eager-hearted as a boy

Eager with the headlong zest of a hunter for the game

Ears that seemed as deaf as dead man's ears

Easy as a poet's dream

Emotions flashed across her face like the sweep of sun-rent clouds over a quiet landscape

Eternal as the skies

Evanescent as bubbles

Every flake that fell from heaven was like an angel's kiss

Every lineament was clear as in the sculptor's thought

Everyone on the watch, like a falcon on its nest

Every phrase is like the flash of a scimitar

Exploded like a penny squib

Eyes as deeply dark as are the desert skies

Eyes as luminous and bright and brown as waters of a woodland river

Eyes half veiled by slumberous tears, like bluest water seen through mists of rain

Eyes like a very dark topaz

Eyes like deep wells of compassionate gloom

Eyes like limpid pools in shadow

Eyes like mountain water that overflowing on a rock


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Editor's note: This section of EnhanceMyVocabulary.com is excerpted and adapted from Project Gutenberg's Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, by Grenville Kleiser.


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