Identifying Figures Of Speech

Front 1

I wandered lonely as a cloud

Back 1

simile

Front 2

He smokes like a chimney

Back 2

simile

Front 3

She ran like the wind

Back 3

simile

Front 4

I've been working like a dog

Back 4

simile

Front 5

Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh - Wilfred Owen

Back 5

simile

Front 6

As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Back 6

simile

Front 7

Yellow butterflies flickered along the shade like flecks of sun - William Faulkner

Back 7

simile

Front 8

Jubilant as a flag unfurled - Dorothy Parker

Back 8

simile

Front 9

“Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East . . .” — Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie.

Back 9

simile

Front 10

“. . . utterly absorbed by the curious experience that still clung to him like a garment.” — Magnificent Obsession, by Lloyd C. Douglas

Back 10

simile

Front 11

“. . . impressions poured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one’s pencil . . .” — To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

Back 11

simile

Front 12

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. — “The Highwayman,” Alfred Noyes

Back 12

metaphor

Front 13

"... his appearance: something displeasing, something down-right detestable."
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

Back 13

alliteration

Front 14

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor — “The Highwayman,” Alfred Noyes

Back 14

metaphor

Front 15

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard — “The Highwayman,” Alfred Noyes

Back 15

alliteration

Front 16

"The fog comes on little cat feet.
It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on." - from The Fog by Carl Sandburg

Back 16

metaphor

Front 17

I'm so hungry I could eat a horse

Back 17

hyperbole

Front 18

I had a ton of homework.

Back 18

hyperbole

Front 19

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts . . ."
William Shakespeare

Back 19

extended metaphor

Front 20

"People moved slowly then. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County." - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Back 20

hyperbole

Front 21

"There did not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait a fishhook with."
- Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Back 21

hyperbole

Front 22

It's a slow burg(town)---I spent a couple of weeks there one day.
- Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes"

Back 22

hyperbole

Front 23

Why does a boy who’s fast as a jet take all day and sometimes two to get to school?

Back 23

hyperbole

Front 24

The skin on her face was as thin and drawn as tight as the skin of onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like the points of two picks.

Back 24

hyperbole

Front 25

It was not a mere man he was holding, but a giant; or a block of granite. The pull was unendurable. The pain unendurable.

Back 25

hyperbole

Front 26

“Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night before.” Paul Bunyan

Back 26

hyperbole

Front 27

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky." - WH Auden

Back 27

hyperbole

Front 28

"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." - Don Marquis

Back 28

analogy

Front 29

"They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water." - George Orwell, A Hanging

Back 29

analogy

Front 30

“... worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum." - Baz Luhrmann, Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)

Back 30

analogy

Front 31

"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded." - Henry Kissinger in a Memo to President Richard Nixon

Back 31

anaolgy

Front 32

"Dumb gorgeous people should not be allowed to use literature when competing in the pick-up pool. It's like bald people wearing hats." - Matt McGrath from the movie Broken Hearts Club

Back 32

analogy

Front 33

Life is like a box of chocolates.

Back 33

analogy (simile)

Front 34

The flowers waltzed in the gentle breeze

Back 34

personification

Front 35

The ocean waves lashed out at the boat and the storm continued to brew

Back 35

personification

Front 36

The snow swaddled the earth like a mother would her infant child.

Back 36

personification

Front 37

The bees played hide and seek with the flowers as they buzzed from one to another.

Back 37

personification

Front 38

He did not realize that his last chance was walking out the door.

Back 38

personification

Front 39

The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky.

Back 39

personification

Front 40

When the DVD went on sale, it flew off the shelves.

Back 40

personification

Front 41

The avalanche devoured everything in its path.

Back 41

personification

Front 42

"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" - William Wordsworth

Back 42

imagery (personification)

Front 43

The lake was left shivering by the touch of morning wind.

Back 43

imagery (personification)

Front 44

The giant tree was ablaze with the orange, red, and yellow leaves that were beginning to make their decent to the ground.

Back 44

imagery

Front 45

Her blue eyes were as bright as the Sun, blue as the sky, but soft as silk

Back 45

imagery

Front 46

Though I was on the sheer face of a mountain, the feeling of swinging through the air was euphoric, almost like flying without wings.

Back 46

imagery

Front 47

IT'S a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba jackass snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful. - Carl Sandburg

Back 47

Onomatopoeia

Front 48

Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night! - Edgar Allan Poe

Back 48

onomatopoeia

Front 49

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells - Edgar Allan Poe

Back 49

onomatopoeia

Front 50

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to." - Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961

Back 50

paradox

Front 51

"War is peace."
"Freedom is slavery."
"Ignorance is strength."
(George Orwell, 1984)

Back 51

paradox

Front 52

"The swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot."
(Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)

Back 52

paradox

Front 53

"If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness."
(Alexander Smith, "On the Writing of Essays." Dreamthorp, 1854)

Back 53

paradox

Front 54

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of human talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House--with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
(President John F. Kennedy at a White House dinner honoring 49 Nobel Prize winners, April 29, 1962)

Back 54

hyperbole

Front 55

'At that time Bogota was a remote, lugubrious city where an insomniac rain had been falling since the beginning of the 16th century.'
(Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Living to Tell the Tale, 2003)

Back 55

hyperbole

Front 56

It is, indeed, amazing to contemplate so vast a vacuity. One thinks of the interstellar spaces, of the colossal reaches of the now mythical ether. Nearly the whole of Europe could be lost in that stupendous region of fat farms, shoddy cities and paralyzed cerebrums: one could throw in France, Germany and Italy, and still have room for the British Isles. And yet, for all its size and all its wealth and all the "progress" it babbles of, it is almost as sterile, artistically, intellectually, culturally, as the Sahara Desert."
(H.L. Mencken, "The Sahara of the Bozart," 1917)

Back 56

hyperbole

Front 57

It was an open secret

Back 57

oxymoron

Front 58

This was a minor crisis

Back 58

oxymoron

Front 59

it would be simply impossible

Back 59

oxymoron

Front 60

the company had used a paid volunteer

Back 60

oxymoron

Front 61

they were made using liquid gas technology

Back 61

oxymoron

Front 62

it looked almost exactly like a more expensive brand

Back 62

oxymoron

Front 63

they were pretty ugly

Back 63

oxymoron

Front 64

Suddenly the room filled with a deafening silence.

Back 64

oxymoron

Front 65

This is a genuine imitation Rolex watch.

Back 65

oxymoron

Front 66

Do you have the original copies that we requested?

Back 66

oxymoron