identify the figures of speech used in the underlined words

• Literary Terms
• Figures of Speech
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Use Figures of Speech

I. What are Figures of Speech?

A figure of speech is a word or phrase using figurative language—language that has other meaning than its normal definition. In other words, figures of speeches rely on implied or suggested meaning, rather than a dictionary definition.  We express and develop them through hundreds of different rhetorical techniques, from specific types like metaphors and similes , to more general forms like sarcasm and slang.

Figures of speech make up a huge portion of the English language, making it more creative, more expressive, and just more interesting! Many have been around for hundreds of years—some even thousands—and more are added to our language essentially every day. This article will focus on a few key forms of figures of speech, but remember, the types are nearly endless!

III. Types of Figure of Speech

There are countless figures of speech in every language, and they fall into hundreds of categories. Here, though, is a short list of some of the most common types of figure of speech:

A. Metaphor

Many common figures of speech are metaphors. That is, they use words in a manner other than their literal meaning. However, metaphors use figurative language to make comparisons between unrelated things or ideas. The “peak of her career,” for example, is a metaphor, since a career is not a literal mountain with a peak , but the metaphor represents the idea of arriving at the highest point of one’s career.

An idiom is a common phrase with a figurative meaning. Idioms are different from other figures of speech in that their figurative meanings are mostly known within a particular language, culture, or group of people. In fact, the English language alone has about 25,000 idioms. Some examples include “it’s raining cats and dogs” when it is raining hard, or “break a leg” when wishing someone good luck.

This sentence uses an idiom to make it more interesting:

There’s a supermarket and a pharmacy in the mall, so if we go there, we can kill two birds with one stone.

The idiom is a common way of saying that two tasks can be completed in the same amount of time or same place.

A proverb is a short, commonplace saying that is universally understood in today’s language and used to express general truths. “Don’t cry over spilt milk” is a popular example. Most proverbs employ metaphors (e.g. the proverb about milk isn’t  literally  about milk).

This example uses a proverb to emphasize the situation:

I know you think you’re going to sell all of those cookies, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch!

Here, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” means that you shouldn’t act like something has happened before it actually does.

A simile is a very common figure of speech that uses the words “like” and “as” to compare two things that are not related by definition. For example, “he is as tall as a mountain,” doesn’t mean he was actually 1,000 feet tall, it just means he was really tall.

This example uses a simile for comparison:

The internet is like a window to the world —you can learn about everything online!

The common phrase “window to the world” refers to a hypothetical window that lets you see the whole world from it. So, saying the internet is like a window to the world implies that it lets you see anything and everything.

E. Oxymoron

An oxymoron is when you use two words together that have contradictory meanings. Some common examples include s mall crowd, definitely possible, old news, little giant , and so on.

A metonym is a word or phrase that is used to represent something related to bigger meaning. For example, fleets are sometimes described as being “thirty sails strong,” meaning thirty (curiously, this metonym survives in some places, even when the ships in question are not sail-powered!) Similarly, the crew on board those ships may be described as “hands” rather than people.

Irony is when a word or phrase’s literal meaning is the opposite of its figurative meaning. Many times (but not always), irony is expressed with sarcasm (see Related Terms). For example, maybe you eat a really bad cookie, and then say “Wow, that was the best cookie I ever had”—of course, what you really mean is that it’s the worst cookie you ever had, but being ironic actually emphasizes just how bad it was!

IV. The Importance of Figures of Speech

In general, the purpose of a figure of speech is to lend texture and color to your writing. (This is itself a figure of speech, since figures of speech don’t actually change the colors or textures on the page!) For instance, metaphors allow you to add key details that make the writing more lively and relatable. Slang and verbal irony, on the other hand, make the writing seem much more informal and youthful (although they can have the opposite effect when misused!) Finally, other figures of speech, like idioms and proverbs, allows a writer to draw on a rich cultural tradition and express complex ideas in a short space.

V. Examples of Figures of Speech in Literature

“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, As You Like It)

This is one of the most famous metaphors ever crafted in the English language. Shakespeare uses his extended metaphor to persuade the audience of the similarities between the stage and real life. But rather than making his play seem more like life, he suggests that life is more like a play. His metaphor calls attention to the performative, creative, and fictional aspects of human life.

“Our words are b ut crumbs that fall down from the feast o f the mind.” (Khalil Gibran, Sand & Foam )

Gibran’s timeless metaphor succeeds for a number of reasons. For one thing, it is not a cliché – had Gibran said “words are just the tip of the iceberg ,” he would have been making roughly the same point, but in a much more clichéd way. But the feast of the mind is a highly original metaphor. In addition, it’s a successful double metaphor. The crumbs and the feast are two parts of the same image, but they work together rather than being “mixed” (see How to Use Figures of Speech ).

“If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.” (Russian Proverb)

Like many proverbs, this one draws on a simple metaphor of chasing rabbits. The rabbits can stand in for all sorts of objectives, from jobs to relationships, but the coded message is quite clear – focus your energy on a single objective, or you will likely fail. This literal statement, though, is quite dry and not terribly memorable, which shows the power of figures of speech.

VI. Examples of Figures of Speech in Pop Culture

The chorus to Sean Kingston’s Fire Burning contains a couple of figures of speech. First of all, there’s the word “shorty” used as a slang term (see Related Terms ) for a young woman. She may or may not be literally short, but the figure of speech applies either way (though it could easily be taken as belittling and derogatory). Second, Kingston sings the metaphor: “she’s fire, burning on the dance floor.” Hopefully this is a figure of speech and not a literal statement; otherwise, Kingston and everyone else in the club are in mortal danger!

“Oh, thanks! This is much better!” (Townspeople, South Park )

This is an example of irony. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, South Park satirized the government’s response to the disaster by writing about a similar disaster in South Park. In a bumbling effort to rescue people from the floods, the authorities accidentally spill oil on the flood waters and set it on fire, making the situation far more dangerous. In response, they ironically “thank” the people responsible—their meaning is obviously the opposite of their words!

Years of talks between Washington and Havana resulted in Obama’s historic visit to Cuba on March 21st. (Patreon 2016)

This is a common form of metonym in foreign policy and news media. The capital city of a country is used as a metonym for the national government. The talks, of course, are not literally between these two cities, but between the leaders and government officials of the two countries (US and Cuba).

VII. Related Terms

Literal and figurative language.

Language is generally divided into two categories: literal, and figurative. Literal language relies on the real definition of words and phrases, or their literal meanings. Figurative language, on the other hand, relies on implied meanings, which can be understood differently depending on the location or who is using it. For example, “the sky is blue” relies on the literal definition of the word “blue,” while “I am feeling blue” relies on the figurative definition. All figures of speech rely on the use of figurative language for their meaning.

Sarcasm is mocking or bitter language that we use to express different meaning than what we say; often the exact opposite. When your intended meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning, that’s irony (another type of figure of speech), which includes common phrases like “Oh, great…” when you really mean something is bad.

Slang is language that uses atypical words and phrases to express specific meanings. It varies greatly by region, demographic, and language—for example, you would find different slang in the U.S. and in the U.K. even though they are both English speaking countries. Likewise, teenagers and the elderly will use different slang terms, as would Spanish and English. Many slang terms are figures of speech. For example, “bro” could be used to describe a friend rather than an actual brother; this would be using the word as a figure of speech.

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4.17: Lesson 12: Figures of Speech in Poetry

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The meaning of language can be literal or figurative. Literal language states exactly what something is. On the other hand, figurative language creates meaning by comparing one thing to another thing. Poets use figures of speech in their poems. Several types of figures of speech exist for them to choose from. Five common ones are simile, metaphor, personification, hypberbole, and understatement.

Simile 

A simile compares one thing to another by using the words  like or  as.  Read Shakespeare’s poem “Sonnet 130.”

Sonnet 130 Author : William Shakespeare © 1598

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red, than her lips red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound: I grant I never saw a goddess go,— My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, as any she belied with false compare.

In this sonnet, Shakespeare’s simile in the first line is a contrast where one thing is not like or as something else. He wrote, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.”

A metaphor compares one to another by saying one thing  is  another. Read Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers.”

Hope Is the Thing with Feathers Author : Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all

And sweetest in the Gale is heard And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm —

I’ve heard it in the chillest land — And on the strangest Sea — Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb — of Me.

Notice that Emily Dickinson compared hope to a bird–the thing with feathers. Because there are bird images throughout the poem, it is called an extended metaphor poem.

Personification

A personification involves giving a non-human, inanimate object the qualities of a person. Robert Frost did that in his poem “Storm Fear.”

Storm Fear Author : Robert Frost ©1913

When the wind works against us in the dark, And pelts with snow The lower chamber window on the east, And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, The beast, ‘Come out! Come out!— It costs no inward struggle not to go, Ah, no! I count our strength, Two and a child, Those of us not asleep subdued to mark How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,— How drifts are piled, Dooryard and road ungraded, Till even the comforting barn grows far away And my heart owns a doubt Whether ’tis in us to arise with day And save ourselves unaided.

Look specifically at the strong action verbs to find the human traits that are attributed to the wind and storm.

A hyperbole is an exaggeration of the truth in order to create an effect. Sometimes that’s done in a single statement. Other times it can happen with repetition like in Robert Frost’s famous poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Read the poem aloud. Notice the effect of the last two lines. The reader feels the tiredness of the weary traveler.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Author : Robert Frost ©1923

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Understatement

Understatement is the exact opposite of a hyperbole. The writer deliberately chooses to downplay the significance or seriousness of a situation or an event. This is evident in Mary Howitt’s Poem ” The Spider and the Fly.”

The Spider and the Fly Author : Mary Howitt ©1853

Will you walk into my parlour, said a Spider to a Fly; ‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy. The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I have many pretty things to shew when you get there. Oh, no, no! said the little Fly; to ask me is in vain: For who goes up that winding stair shall ne’er come down again.

Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, Dear friend, what can I do To prove the warm affection I have ever felt tor you? I have within my parlour great store of all that’s nice: I’m sure you’re very welcome; will you please to take a slice! Oh, no, no! said the little Fly; kind sir, that cannot be; For I know what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.

Sweet creature, said the Spider, you’re witty and you’re wise; How handsome are your gaudy wings, how brilliant are your eyes! I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour-shelf; If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself. Oh, thank you, gentle sir, she said, for what you’re pleased to say; And wishing you good morning now, I’ll call another day.

The Spider turn’d him round again, and went into his den, For well he knew that silly Fly would soon come back again. And then he wore a tiny web, in a little corner sly, And set his table ready for to dine upon the Fly; And went out to his door again, and merrily did sing, Come hither, pretty little Fly, with the gold and silver wing.

Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly, Hearing his wily flattering words, came slowly fluttering by. With humming wings she hung aloft, then nearer and nearer drew. Thinking only of her crested head and gold and purple hue: Thinking only of her brilliant wings, poor silly thing! at last, Up jump’d the cruel Spider, and firmly held her fast!

He dragg’d her up his winding stair, into his dismal den, Within his little parlour; but she ne’er came down again. And now, my pretty maidens, who may this story hear, To silly, idle, flattering words, I pray you ne’er give ear; Unto an evil counsellor close heart, and ear, and eye, And learn a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.

• Lesson 12: Figures of Speech in Poetry. Authored by : Linda Frances Lein, M.F.A. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Sonnet 130. Authored by : William Shakespeare. Provided by : Wikisource. Located at : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sonnet_130_(Shakespeare) . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Hope Is the Thing with Feathers. Authored by : Emily Dickinson. Provided by : Wikisource. Located at : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/%22Hope%22_is_the_thing_with_feathers_u2014 . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Storm Fear. Authored by : Robert Frost. Provided by : Wikisource. Located at : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Boy%27s_Will/Storm_Fear . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Authored by : Robert Frost. Provided by : Wikisource. Located at : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Stopping_by_Woods_on_a_Snowy_Evening . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• The Spider and the Fly. Authored by : Mary Howitt. Provided by : Wikisource. Located at : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_First_Series_of_Hymns_and_Songs/Descriptive_Songs/The_Spider_and_the_Fly . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Figurative Language

Figurative Language Definition

What is figurative language? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

Figurative language is language that contains or uses figures of speech . When people use the term "figurative language," however, they often do so in a slightly narrower way. In this narrower definition, figurative language refers to language that uses words in ways that deviate from their literal interpretation to achieve a more complex or powerful effect. This view of figurative language focuses on the use of figures of speech that play with the meaning of words, such as metaphor , simile , personification , and hyperbole .

Some additional key details about figurative language:

• Figurative language is common in all sorts of writing, as well as in spoken language.
• Figurative language refers to language that contains figures of speech, while figures of speech are the particular techniques. If figurative speech is like a dance routine, figures of speech are like the various moves that make up the routine.
• It's a common misconception that imagery, or vivid descriptive language, is a kind of figurative language. In fact, writers can use figurative language as one tool to help create imagery, but imagery does not have to use figurative language.

Figurative Language Pronunciation

Here's how to pronounce figurative language: fig -yer-uh-tiv lang -gwij

Figures of Speech and Figurative Language

To fully understand figurative language, it's helpful to have a basic understanding of figures of speech. More specifically, it's helpful to understand the two main types of figures of speech: tropes and schemes .

• Tropes are figures of speech that play with and shift the expected and literal meaning of words.
• Schemes are figures of speech that involve a change from the typical mechanics of a sentence, such as the order, pattern, or arrangement of words.

Put even more simply: tropes play with the meaning of words, while schemes play with the structure of words, phrases, and sentences.

The Different Things People Mean When They Say Figurative Language

When people say figurative language, they don't always mean the precise same thing. Here are the three different ways people usually talk about figurative language:

• Dictionary definition of figurative language: According to the dictionary, figurative language is simply any language that contains or uses figures of speech. This definition would mean that figurative language includes the use of both tropes and schemes.
• Much more common real world use of figurative language: However, when people (including teachers) refer to figurative language, they usually mean language that plays with the literal meaning of words. This definition sees figurative language as language that primarily involves the use of tropes.
• Another common real world use of figurative language: Some people define figurative language as including figures of speech that play with meaning as well as a few other common schemes that affect the rhythm and sound of text, such as alliteration and assonance .

What does all that boil down to for you? If you hear someone talking about figurative language, you can usually safely assume they are referring to language that uses figures of speech to play with the meaning of words and, perhaps, with the way that language sounds or feels.

Common Types of Figurative Language

There are many, many types of figures of speech that can be involved in figurative language. Some of the most common are:

• Metaphor : A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unrelated things by stating that one thing is another thing, even though this isn't literally true. For example, the phrase "her lips are a blooming rose" obviously doesn't literally mean what it says—it's a metaphor that makes a comparison between the red beauty and promise of a blooming rose with that of the lips of the woman being described.
• Simile : A simile, like a metaphor, makes a comparison between two unrelated things. However, instead of stating that one thing is another thing (as in metaphor), a simile states that one thing is like another thing. An example of a simile would be to say "they fought like cats and dogs."
• Oxymoron : An oxymoron pairs contradictory words in order to express new or complex meanings. In the phrase "parting is such sweet sorrow" from Romeo and Juliet , "sweet sorrow" is an oxymoron that captures the complex and simultaneous feelings of pain and pleasure associated with passionate love.
• Hyperbole : Hyperbole is an intentional exaggeration of the truth, used to emphasize the importance of something or to create a comic effect. An example of a hyperbole is to say that a backpack "weighs a ton." No backpack literally weighs a ton, but to say "my backpack weighs ten pounds" doesn't effectively communicate how burdensome a heavy backpack feels.
• Personification : In personification, non-human things are described as having human attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down on the wedding guests, indifferent to their plans." Describing the rain as "indifferent" is an example of personification, because rain can't be "indifferent," nor can it feel any other human emotion.
• Idiom : An idiom is a phrase that, through general usage within a particular group or society, has gained a meaning that is different from the literal meaning of the words. The phrase "it's raining cats and dogs" is known to most Americans to mean that it's raining hard, but an English-speaking foreigner in the United States might find the phrase totally confusing.
• Onomatopoeia : Onomatopoeia is a figure of speech in which words evoke the actual sound of the thing they refer to or describe. The “boom” of a firework exploding, the “tick tock” of a clock, and the “ding dong” of a doorbell are all examples of onomatopoeia.
• Synecdoche : In synecdoche, a part of something is used to refer to its whole . For example, "The captain commands one hundred sails" is a synecdoche that uses "sails" to refer to ships—ships being the thing of which a sail is a part.
• Metonymy : Metonymy is a figure of speech in which an object or concept is referred to not by its own name, but instead by the name of something closely associated with it. For example, in "Wall Street prefers lower taxes," the New York City street that was the original home of the New York Stock Exchange stands in for (or is a "metonym" for) the entire American financial industry.
• Alliteration : In alliteration, the same sound repeats in a group of words, such as the “ b ” sound in: “ B ob b rought the b ox of b ricks to the b asement.” Alliteration uses repetition to create a musical effect that helps phrases to stand out from the language around them.
• Assonance : The repetition of vowel sounds repeat in nearby words, such as the " ee " sound: "the squ ea ky wh ee l gets the gr ea se." Like alliteration, assonance uses repeated sounds to create a musical effect in which words echo one another.

Figurative Language vs. Imagery

Many people (and websites) argue that imagery is a type of figurative language. That is actually incorrect. Imagery refers to a writers use of vivid and descriptive language to appeal to the reader's senses and more deeply evoke places, things, emotions, and more. The following sentence uses imagery to give the reader a sense of how what is being described looks, feels, smells, and sounds:

The night was dark and humid, the scent of rotting vegetation hung in the air, and only the sound of mosquitoes broke the quiet of the swamp.

This sentence uses no figurative language. Every word means exactly what it says, and the sentence is still an example of the use of imagery. That said, imagery can use figurative language, often to powerful effect:

The night was dark and humid, heavy with a scent of rotting vegetation like a great-aunt's heavy and inescapable perfume, and only the whining buzz of mosquitoes broke the silence of the swamp.

In this sentence, the description has been made more powerful through the use of a simile ("like a great-aunt's..."), onomatopoeia ("whining buzz," which not only describes but actually sounds like the noise made by mosquitoes), and even a bit of alliteration in the " s ilence of the s wamp."

To sum up: imagery is not a form of figurative language. But a writer can enhance his or her effort to write imagery through the use of figurative language.

Figurative Language Examples

Figurative language is more interesting, lively, beautiful, and memorable than language that's purely literal. Figurative language is found in all sorts of writing, from poetry to prose to speeches to song lyrics, and is also a common part of spoken speech. The examples below show a variety of different types of figures of speech. You can see many more examples of each type at their own specific LitChart entries.

Figurative Language Example: Metaphor

Metaphor in shakespeare's romeo and juliet.

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet , Romeo uses the following metaphor in Act 2 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet , after sneaking into Juliet's garden and catching a glimpse of her on her balcony:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Romeo compares Juliet to the sun not only to describe how radiantly beautiful she is, but also to convey the full extent of her power over him. He's so taken with Juliet that her appearances and disappearances affect him like those of the sun. His life "revolves" around Juliet like the earth orbits the sun.

Figurative Language Example: Simile

In this example of a simile from Slaughterhouse-Five , Billy Pilgrim emerges from an underground slaughterhouse where he has been held prisoner by the Germans during the deadly World War II firebombing of Dresden:

It wasn't safe to come out of the shelter until noon the next day. When the Americans and their guards did come out, the sky was black with smoke. The sun was an angry little pinhead. Dresden was like the moon now , nothing but minerals. The stones were hot. Everybody else in the neighborhood was dead.

Vonnegut uses simile to compare the bombed city of Dresden to the moon in order to capture the totality of the devastation—the city is so lifeless that it is like the barren moon.

Figurative Language Example: Oxymoron

These lines from Chapter 7 of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls describe an encounter between Robert Jordan, a young American soldier fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and his lover María.

She held herself tight to him and her lips looked for his and then found them and were against them and he felt her, fresh, new and smooth and young and lovely with the warm, scalding coolness and unbelievable to be there in the robe that was as familiar as his clothes, or his shoes, or his duty and then she said, frightenedly, “And now let us do quickly what it is we do so that the other is all gone.”

The couple's relationship becomes a bright spot for both of them in the midst of war, but ultimately also a source of pain and confusion for Jordan, as he struggles to balance his obligation to fight with his desire to live happily by Maria's side. The contradiction contained within the oxymoron "scalding coolness" emphasizes the couple's conflicting emotions and impossible situation.

Figurative Language Example: Hyperbole

Elizabeth Bennet, the most free-spirited character in Pride and Prejudice , refuses Mr. Darcy's first marriage proposal with a string of hyperbole :

From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

Elizabeth's closing statement, that Darcy is the "last man in the world" whom she would ever marry, is an obvious hyperbole. It's hard to believe that Elizabeth would rather marry, say, an axe murderer or a diseased pirate than Mr. Darcy. Even beyond the obvious exaggeration, Austen's use of hyperbole in this exchange hints at the fact that Elizabeth's feelings for Darcy are more complicated than she admits, even to herself. Austen drops various hints throughout the beginning of the novel that Elizabeth feels something beyond mere dislike for Darcy. Taken together with these hints, Elizabeth's hyperbolic statements seem designed to convince not only Darcy, but also herself, that their relationship has no future.

Figurative Language Example: Personification

In Chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter , Nathaniel Hawthorne describes a wild rose bush that grows in front of Salem's gloomy wooden jail:

But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.

In the context of the novel's setting in 17th century Boston, this rose bush, which grows wild in front of an establishment dedicated to enforcing harsh puritan values, symbolizes those elements of human nature that cannot be repressed, no matter how strict a community's moral code may be: desire, fertility, and a love of beauty. By personifying the rosebush as "offering" its blossoms to reflect Nature's pity (Nature is also personified here as having a "heart"), Hawthorne turns the passive coincidence of the rosebush's location into an image of human nature actively resisting its constraints.

Figurative Language Example: Idiom

Figurative language example: onomatopoeia.

In Act 3, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's The Tempest , Caliban uses onomatopoeia to convey the noises of the island.

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices...

The use of onomatopoeia makes the audience feel the sounds on the island, rather than just have to take Caliban's word about there being noises.

Figurative Language Example: Synecdoche

In Act 4, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Macbeth , an angry Macbeth kicks out a servant by saying:

Take thy face hence.

Here, "thy face" stands in for "you." Macbeth is simply telling the servant to leave, but his use of synecdoche makes the tone of his command more harsh and insulting because he uses synecdoche to treat the servant not as a person but as an object, a body part.

Figurative Language Example: Metonymy

In his song "Juicy," Notorious B.I.G. raps:

Now I'm in the limelight 'cause I rhyme tight

Here he's using "limelight" as a metonymy for fame (a "limelight" was a kind of spotlight used in old theaters, and so it came to be associated with the fame of being in the spotlight). Biggie's use of metonymy here also sets him up for a sweet rhyme.

Figurative Language Example: Alliteration

In his song "Rap God," Eminem shows his incredible lyrical dexterity by loading up the alliteration :

S o I wanna make sure, s omewhere in this chicken s cratch I S cribble and doodle enough rhymes T o maybe t ry t o help get s ome people through t ough t imes But I gotta k eep a few punchlines Just in c ase, ‘ c ause even you un s igned Rappers are hungry l ooking at me l ike it's l unchtime…

Why Do Writers Use Figurative Language?

The term figurative language refers to a whole host of different figures of speech, so it's difficult to provide a single definitive answer to why writers use figurative language. That said, writers use figurative language for a wide variety of reasons:

• Interest and beauty: Figurative language allows writes to express descriptions, ideas, and more in ways that are unique and beautiful.
• Complexity and power: Because figurative language can create meanings that go beyond the literal, it can capture complex ideas, feelings, descriptions, or truths that cause readers to see things in a new way, or more closely mirror the complex reality of the world.
• Visceral affect: Because figurative language can both impact the rhythm and sound of language, and also connect the abstract (say, love) with the concrete (say, a rose), it can help language make an almost physical impact on a reader.
• Humor: By allowing a writer to layer additional meanings over literal meanings, or even to imply intended meanings that are the opposite of the literal meaning, figurative language gives writers all sorts of options for creating humor in their writing.
• Realism: People speak and even think in terms of the sorts of comparisons that underlie so much figurative language. Rather than being flowery, figurative language allows writers to describe things in ways that match how people really think about them, and to create characters who themselves feel real.

In general, figurative language often makes writing feel at once more accessible and powerful, more colorful, surprising, and deep.

Other Helpful Figurative Language Resources

• The dictionary definition of figurative : Touches on figurative language, as well as some other meanings of the word.
• Figurative and Frost : Examples of figurative language in the context of the poetry of Robert Frost.
• Figurative YouTube : A video identifying various forms of figurative language from movies and television shows.
• Wikipedia on literal and figurative language : A bit technical, but with a good list of examples.

• PDFs for all 136 Lit Terms we cover
• Downloads of 1918 LitCharts Lit Guides
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• Explanations and citation info for 40,450 quotes across 1918 books
• Downloadable (PDF) line-by-line translations of every Shakespeare play
• Alliteration
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Figurative Language

Figurative language definition.

Figurative language uses figures of speech to be more effective, persuasive, and impactful.

Figures of speech such as metaphors , similes, and allusions go beyond the literal meanings of the words to give readers new insights. On the other hand, alliterations, imageries, or onomatopoeias are figurative devices that appeal to the senses of the readers.

Figurative language can appear in multiple forms with the use of different literary and rhetorical devices . According to Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia, the definition of figurative language has five different forms:

• Understatement or Emphasis
• Relationship or Resemblance
• Figures of Sound
• Verbal Games

Types of Figurative Language

The term figurative language covers a wide range of literary devices and techniques, a few of which include:

Personification

• Onomatopoeia

Alliteration

• Understatement

Short Examples of Figurative Language

• His friend is as black as coal.
• He has learned gymnastics, and is as agile as a monkey.
• When attacked in his home, he will fight like a caged tiger.
• Can you dance like a monkey?
• Even when he was told everything, he was acting like a donkey.
• My Friend is a Shakespeare when in English class.
• He was a roaring lion in anger, though now he is silent.
• They seem like jackals when running in fear.
• Kisses are roses in the spring .
• This world is a sea of anonymous faces.
• The house stood half-demolished and abandoned.
• He left with his haunted and spell-bound face.
• He did not like the odorless and colorless shape of water.
• His friend was looking at spooky glissando twangs.
• Zigzag fissures in the land made him look for snakes .
• The light on the site did not let him see the sight.
• He heard the sound of the fire, like wire striking the air.
• This artificial stream is going to flow to the downtown of the town.
• Please set the kite right.
• Might of the fright seems greater than the actual fear.
• He lets the pink ball fall with a tall man.
• They have not learned how to catch the cat.
• Get a seat with a treat in our local hall.
• Calling the cow an ox is like putting the cart before the horse.
• He saw the pink kite floating past the tall trees .
• He is dying with his untrustworthy belief.
• Sharply blunt razor cannot do anything to you.
• Kindly cruel treatment made him flabbergasted.
• Please, watch with closed eyes and you will see the heaven.
• Creatively dull person cannot do anything in his life.
• The Pentagon is located in Washington in the United States.
• The Hollywood is a home of English movies.
• 10 Downing Street is located in London .
• Buckingham Palace is world’s oldest symbol of democracy.
• The White House.
• He does not know how to behave with the special people.
• He is looking at his own grey hair and his agility.
• They saw a fleet of fifty.
• At this time, he owns nine head of cattle.
• The new generation is addicted to the use of plastic money.

Examples of Figurative Language from Literature

Example #1: the base stealer (by robert francis).

Poised between going on and back, pulled Both ways taut like a tight-rope walker, Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball, Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on! … Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird, He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,

The similes and word choice of this poem makes it a masterpiece. The poet use similes between the lines to depict his scattered thoughts before taking action, and makes comparison as, “ like a tight-rope ,” “ like a dropped ball ,” and “ hovers like an ecstatic bird .”

Example #2: I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings (By Maya Angelou)

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage Can seldom see through his bars of rage His wings are clipped and his feet are tied The caged bird sings with a fearful trill … And his tune is heard on the distant hill for The caged bird sings of freedom.

The entire poem is rich with metaphor as a bird in a cage represents a group of people who are oppressed and cannot get freedom. The cage represents physical barriers, fear, addiction, or society; while the song of the bird represents true self yearning for something greater in life.

Example #3: She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms (By Emily Dickinson)

She sweeps with many-colored Brooms And leaves the Shreds behind Oh Housewife in the Evening West Come back, and dust the Pond!

Dickinson uses personification of a housewife to describe the sunset in the very first line of this poem. She is using a sweeping housewife who does her daily work, likewise the rays of the setting sun sweep away beneath the horizon.

Example #4: The Raven (By Edgar Allen Poe)

O nce upon a midnight dreary w hile I pondered w eak and w eary ; r are and r adiant maiden; And the s ilken s ad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain … D eep into that d arkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, D oubting, d reaming d reams no mortal ever d ared to d ream before.

Poe uses alliteration by repeating the /w/ sound to emphasize the weariness of the narrator , and then /r/ and /s/ sounds in the second and third lines respectively. In the last two lines, the /d/ sound highlights the narrator’s hopelessness.

Example #5: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (By Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks Had I from old and young ! Instead of the cross , the Albatross About my neck was hung.

In these lines, the albatross symbolizes a big mistake, or a burden of sin, just like the cross on which Christ was crucified. Therefore, all people on the ship agreed to slay that bird.

Example #6: The Bluest Eyes (By Toni Morrison)

Personification, consonance, and simile.

She ran down the street, the green knee socks making her legs look like wild dandelion of stems that had somehow lost their heads. The weight of her remark stunned us.

This excerpt uses different devices that make language figurative. There is a good use of simile , “legs look like wild dandelion;” and personification, “lost their heads;” and use of consonance in “stunned us,” where the /s/ is a consonant sound.

Example #7: The Week of Diana (By Maya Angelou)

Metaphor, consonance, personification.

“The dark lantern of world sadness has cast its shadow upon the land. We stumble into our misery on leaden feet.”

in just these two lines, Maya Angelou has used a metaphor of the dark lantern, consonance of the /s/ sounds, and personification of misery.

Example #8: The Negro Speaks of River (By Langston Hughes)

Consonance, simile.

“I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

This prince of the Harlem Renaissance has beautifully used a different type of consonance with the /l/ sound and a simile of “my soul.”

Example #9: Musée des Beaux Arts (By W. H. Auden)

Personification, consonance.

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy W. H. Auden life and the torturer’s horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

W. H. Auden has used a personification of the “dreadful martyrdom,” and consonances of “some untidy spot,” with the /s/ sound, and “dogs go on with their doggy life,” with the /d/ and /g/ sounds.

Function of Figurative Language

The primary function of figurative language is to force readers to imagine what a writer wants to express. Figurative language is not meant to convey literal meanings, and often it compares one concept with another in order to make the first concept easier to understand. However, it links the two ideas or concepts with the goal of influencing the audience to understand the link, even if it does not exist.

Poets and prose writers use this technique to bring out emotions and help their readers form images in their minds. Thus, figurative language is a useful way of conveying an idea that readers cannot understand otherwise, due to its complex and abstract nature. In addition, it helps in analyzing a literary text.

Related posts:

•   Examples Of Figurative Language In Poetry
• Examples of Figurative Language in Rap Songs
• Examples Of Figurative Language In Popular Songs
• Examples Of Figurative Language In Children’s Poetry and Rhymes
• Sensory Language

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figure of speech

What is a figure of speech definition, usage, and literary examples, figure of speech definition.

Figures of speech  (FIG-yurs of SPEEchuh) are words or phrases used in a non-literal sense for  rhetorical  effect. They are often constructed using literary devices such as  metaphor ,  simile ,  alliteration , metonymy, synecdoche, and personification. Figures of speech allow writers to apply familiar ideas and  imagery  to less familiar concepts, and they are widespread in written and spoken language.

Figure of Speech Categories

Figures of speech fall into two broad categories: tropes and scheme. These are  dozens of figures of speech  that fall into each category, so the following are a select few examples.

These are figures of speech that play with syntax, sound, and words. They often achieve their effects by utilizing repetition of words, phrases, or sounds; omission of words or punctuation; unexpected changes in word order; or paired identical grammatical structures.

• Alliteration : Repeating consonant sounds in a series of words
• Diacope: Repeating words or phrases, interrupted by one or two other words
• Homonyms: Identical words that have different meanings
• Sibilance: Repeating hissing sounds
• Asyndeton: Omitting conjunctions between related series of clauses
• Brachylogia: Omitting conjunctions between individual words
• Ellipsis: Omitting words without losing  context  or understanding
• Syncope: Omitting word or phrase parts

Changes in Word Order

• Anastrophe: Rearranging the subject, object and verb order in a phrase
• Apposition: Two phrases, often separated by commas, where the second defines the first
• Parenthesis: A rhetorical, qualifying phrase inserted into a sentence or passage
• Spoonerism: Switching syllables between two words

Paired Grammatical Structures

• Antithesis : Juxtaposing ideas
• Isocolon: Consecutive phrases of identical length in words or syllables
• Parallelism: Similar grammatical structure between two or more clauses
• Tricolon: Three consecutive phrases of identical length in words or syllables

These are figures of speech that deviate in some way from the literal meanings of words. They tend to include association or comparison to shift readers’ perceptions from words’ true definitions to a layered figurative meaning. They can be broken into five categories: reference, word play/puns, substitutions, overstatement/understatement, and inversion.

• Allegory : A narrative that is an indirect metaphor for a broader, real-world concept
• Allusion : An intertextual reference to another creative work
• Metaphor : A direct comparison between two unrelated things
• Personification: Attributing human characteristics to non-human entities

Word Play/Puns

• Innuendo: A phrase or  sentence  with a hidden (often salacious) meaning
• Malapropism: Confusing a word with a similar sounding one
• Paraprosdokian : An unexpected ending to a phrase
• Pun : Word play that makes use of a word’s multiple meanings

Substitutions

• Dysphemism: Using a harsh word or phrase to replace a gentler one
• Euphemism : Using a more agreeable word or phrase to replace an offensive one
• Metonymy: Replacing a word or term with something associated with it
• Synecdoche: Referring to a whole by its part(s) or vice versa

Overstatement/Understatement

• Grandiloquence: Speech that is pompous or grandiose
• Hyperbole : An emphatic exaggeration
• Litotes : Emphasizing a statement by negating its opposite
• Satire: Criticism of society through humorous means
• Irony : Conveying the opposite of a word’s literal meaning
• Oxymoron : Using contradictory words together
• Paradox: Using contradictory ideas to make a point
• Synesthesia: Using sensory-specific words to describe a different sense

Most Common Figures of Speech

The following are some of the most common figures of speech that appear in literature and other written forms.

• Alliteration :  This is a scheme that uses repetition of the same first consonant sound to create a musical effect. “Francine found France quite lovely” is an example of alliteration because of the repeating  f  sound in the words  Francine ,  found , and  France .
• Apostrophe:  With apostrophe, a speaker directly addresses an inanimate object, an abstract concept, or a person who is either imaginary or not present. John Donne use apostrophe in his poem “ Holy Sonnet: Death, be not proud ,” wherein he speaks directly to a personified idea of death.
• Chiasmus:  This is a scheme where the second half of an expression is balanced against the first half in a reversed order. “You should eat to live, not live to eat” is one example; it repeats the words  eat  and  live  but reverses the order the second time they occur.
• Euphemism:  This literary device takes a mild or indirect word or expression and replaces something harsh, unpleasant, or offensive with it. Saying someone  passed on  is a euphemism for  died ;  powder my nose  is a euphemism for  go to the bathroom .
• Hyperbole:  This is the use of exaggeration for emphasis or heightened effect. “If I don’t nap right now, I will die” is a hyperbolic statement; it conveys the experience of feeling tired, but readers understand the speaker won’t literally die.
• Irony:  This literary device occurs when words are used to convey the opposite of their meaning or when a situation seems directly contrary to what is expected. Famously, Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” lists many situations she deems ironic when they aren’t ironic at all; thus, irony.
• Litotes:  This figure of speech refers to a type of understatement. It is used to negate a statement in a way that actually affirms it. For example, saying “That’s no small chunk of change” indicates that the sum in question is, in fact, large.
• Metaphor :  A form of trope, metaphors make an implicit comparison between two unrelated things. “Love is a battlefield” is metaphoric, as it implies the experience of being in love is the same as being on a battlefield.
• Onomatopoeia :  Words that are onomatopoeic evoke the sounds of the thing they are referring to.  Hiss ,  crash , and  tick tock  are all examples because they sound like what they are describing—the sound of a snake, thunder, and a clock, respectively.
• Oxymoron:  This literary device consists of contradictory words paired together. Although the words initially appear to negate each other, they make sense when joined.  Deafening silence  is an oxymoronic pair; the adjective  deafening  means “a volume so high that nothing can be heard over it,” and the noun  silence  means “without sound.” These words are incongruous, but together they mean an overbearing, noticeable absence of sound.
• Personification:  When greater qualities of animation are given to a non-human or inanimate object, that is personification. In T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” fog is described as “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes/The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes.” Here, Eliot is personifying the fog by giving it the attributes of a cat.
• Pun :  This is a humorous play on words, often using homonyms, homographs, or homophones. For example, “I’ve been to the dentist many times, so I know the drill” is a pun; it plays with the double meaning of the word  drill  as a tool of the dentistry trade and as a concept of something being routine.
• Simile :  Related to metaphors, similes are explicit comparisons made using the words  like  or  as . “Lucille’s dress was as red as a fire truck” makes an explicit comparison between the color of the dress and the color of a fire truck. This allows the reader to properly visualize what Lucille is wearing.
• Synecdoche:  This is a figure of speech wherein a part of something stands in for the whole thing. “All hands on deck” is a synecdoche because  hands  stands in for the whole crew of a ship.”

Figure of Speech and Figurative Language

People often use the terms  figurative language  and  figure of speech  interchangeably; however, they are not the same. Instead, figurative language is a broad category that contains figures of speech, as well as  imagery  and  sound devices .

Imagery adds additional aesthetic resonance to texts through the evocation of sensory details. Sound devices enhance the text through sonic means. These elements, in conjunction with figures of speech, give a deeper meaning to the language a writer uses in their work.

Why Figures of Speech Are Used

These literary devices emphasize, embellish, or clarify written or spoken language. They allow an audience to understand ideas through implied or suggested meaning, thus giving the language a more surprising, creative, and playful effect. Some figures of speech enhance imagery, while others allow writers to employ rich cultural traditions to express their ideas. Even further, other figures of speech allow writers to experiment with structure and sound to create specific effects. No matter which type is used, the expressive quality of figures of speech helps keep audiences engaged.

Examples of Figures of Speech in Literature

1. Hafizah Geter, “ Testimony ”

Geter begins her  poem :

Mr. President,

After they shot me they tackled my sister.

the sound of her knees hitting the sidewalk

made my stomach ache. It was a bad pain.

The poem is a  dramatic monologue  spoken by Tamir Rice, a 12-year old black child who was killed by police officers who mistook his toy gun for a real one. This poem uses apostrophe as the speaker, Tamir, talks directly to “Mr. President” (then president Barack Obama).

2. William Shakespeare,   Macbeth

In Act III, Scene iii., of this play, before King Duncan’s murder is discovered, Lennox and Macbeth converse:

LENNOX: The night has been unruly: where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,

Lamentings heard i’the air; strange screams of death,

And prophesying with accents terrible

Of fire combustion and confused events

New hatch’d to the woeful time: the obscure bird

Clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth

Was feverous and did shake.

MACBETH: ‘Twas a rough night.

LENNOX: My young remembrance cannot parallel

A fellow to it.

Pathetic fallacy is a type of trope. It occurs when human feelings and attributes are ascribed to nature. This figure of speech is used throughout this  Shakespearean  tragedy. In this particular scene, Lennox describes how terrible and strange the weather was on the evening of the murder. The way the wind and earth seem to embody the horror of King Duncan’s death is pathetic fallacy.

3. Karl Marx,   Das Kapital

In Part I (“Commodities and Money”) of Marx’s treatise on economics, philosophy, history, and political science, he claims:

In the pre-capitalist stages of society, commerce rules industry. In capitalist society, industry rules commerce.

These two sentences are an example of chiasmus. Here, “commerce” first rules “industry,” and then “industry” rules “commerce.” By reversing the order of these words/concepts, Marx employs chiasmus.

4. Toni Morrison,  Sula

The last line of Morrison’s novel is considered by some to be one of the best lines in fiction and nonfiction. The sentence describes protagonist Nel’s grief at the death of her childhood friend Sula:

It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

This sentence is rich in alliteration: “loud and long” contain  L  sounds at the beginning, as well as the repetition of  c  and  s  sounds with  cry ,  circles ,  circles , and  sorrow . The latter is also an example of sibilance.

5. Oscar Wilde,   The Importance of Being Earnest

In Wilde’s play, the main characters John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff pose as men named Ernest, only for Jack to learn that his given name really is Ernest. He delivers the final line of the play:

On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Earnest.

Jack/Ernest’s declaration is a homographic pun. It means both that he understands the importance of being Ernest (his real name), as well as the importance of being  earnest  (sincere).

6. Aimee Nezhukumatathil, “ On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance ”

In this poem, Nezhukumatathil describes the experience of one’s name being mispronounced by a teacher taking attendance:

everyone turns around to check out

your face, no need to flush red and warm.

Just picture all the eyes as if your classroom

is one big scallop with its dozens of icy blues

and you will remember that winter your family

took you to the China see and you sank

your face in it to gaze at baby clams and sea stars

She uses a simile, “Just picture all the eyes as if your classroom/is one big scallop with its dozens of icy blues,” to explicitly compare the staring kids to the dozens of eyes that a sea scallop has.

Further Resources on Figure of Speech

Thought Catalog has a wonderful list of  figures of speech used by Homer Simpson  in  The Simpsons.

Jamcampus published a  great list  of twenty examples of metaphors in popular songs.

This is an entertaining round up of  oxymorons .

SuperSummary's library of resources and content , such as " A Beginner's Guide to Literary Analysis " and " How to Write a Summary ."

Related Terms

• Figurative language

Top 20 Figures of Speech Quiz

Select the figure of speech most clearly illustrated by the short passage

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York
• understatement
• synechdoche
• onomatopoeia
• personification
• alliteration

The wind is being addressed as though it is capable of understanding, which makes this verse an example of apostrophe .

Using metonymy allows a writer to describe something indirectly by referring to other similar or associated elements.

Puns are also known as "Dad jokes."

In the opening of A Tale of Two Cities , Charles Dickens uses antithesis to contrast opposing ideas with balanced phrases.

Writers use assonance, the repetition of similar vowel sounds, for emphasis and to show relatedness or cohesion.

Irony, the opposite of what is expected.

Good start! You can use these resources to learn more about common figures of speech:

• Learn About Metaphors
• Learn About Similes
• Learn About Puns
• Learn About Irony

Nice job! Here are some resources on less common figures of speech that you might find interesting:

• Learn About Euphemisms
• Learn About Hyperbole
• Learn About Oxymorons
• Learn About Understatement

Terrific work! You're a star of the figure of speech world. Interested in learning more? Check out these articles:

• Smashing Examples of Onomatopeoia
• All About Alliteration
• The Best Hyperbole Definition Ever
• The Other Kind of Apostrophe

Wow! You are beyond awesome and that is an understatement . Interested in learning even more about figures of speech? Check out these articles:

• You say Antimetabole , I say Chiasmus
• Going to bed is an example of Metonymy .
• Figure of Speech: Definition and Examples
• Brief Introductions to Common Figures of Speech
• The Top 20 Figures of Speech
• What Is the Figure of Speech Antiphrasis?
• 20 Figures of Speech That We Never Heard About in School
• Homer Simpson's Figures of Speech
• Figures of Speech: The Apostrophe as a Literary Device
• Figure of Thought in Rhetoric
• Definition and Examples of Irony (Figure of Speech)
• What Does Anaphora Mean as a Figure of Speech?
• Hysteron Proteron (Rhetoric)
• Chiasmus Figure of Speech
• How Figurative Language Is Used Every Day
• Figure of Sound in Prose and Poetry

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “he (or she) was just being poetic .” It’s a phrase you wouldn’t be surprised to hear after someone utters some flowery description of a sunrise or a snowstorm. It describes a use of language that is perhaps pretty but also empty, something meaninglessly ornate. It’s an unfortunate use of the word. Authentic poetic language is very different.

We will call “poetic language” that language which is most closely associated with poetry. It is also called “figurative language.” It is opposed to so-called “literal” language. Understood in the context of actual poetry, poetic language is not nice-sounding words that have no real meaning. Poetic language is the fullest possible language. Poets pack the absolute maximum of meaning (in every sense of the word) into every part of the poem. This does sometimes make poems hard to understand, and that may mislead a hasty reader to think there is nothing to understand. In other words, one of the reasons poetry sometimes seems empty is that it is so full.

It’s important to understand first that poems are not made entirely of what is properly called “poetic” language. Poems don’t use only figurative and never literal language. As we’ve said already: the language of poetry is not essentially different from the language of everyday life. That means two things: it means that everything we do when we use language outside of poems, we also do in poems. It also means that everything we do in poems, we also do in everyday language. All of the “devices” that we properly associate with poetic language are also used regularly in everyday language, spoken or written, and not just by people who have a vast or specialized education or a particular facility with language. “Poetic language” is used by everyone, including you and your three-year old brother. It’s not overstating the case to say that poetry is a part of language itself and that poems are merely the most concentrated expressions of language’s inherent poetry. Poets are more conscious of the poetry already in language and more deliberate in their use of it. Poems heighten or intensify certain ordinary ways of using language. We might say that poems put the emphasis on different aspects of language—including the language we call figurative. But they still don’t do anything that we don’t already do every day when we speak.

Yet poems don’t usually feel like everyday language. Everyday language is usually easy to understand. And poems often are not. Everyday language tends to say exactly what it means—or at least tries to. Poems don’t seem to do that. We come back again to a question we addressed in Chapter One: Why don’t poems just say what they mean? We began to answer this question when we said that poems are not merely trying to say something. They are also trying to do (or be) something. But that answer is incomplete. We did not explain how poems use language to do things. We will begin to answer that question here. We know that poems use sound (such as rhyme), and rhythm and lines. We’ll talk about these other things in later chapters. Here we will be thinking about how poems use figurative language to create meaning and experiences.

Literal and Figurative Language

As we said, so-called figurative language is usually opposed to what is called literal language. Literal language is language that says exactly and directly what it means; it is language without figures. Figurative language, then, as it is usually understood, is language that takes a kind of roundabout path to its meaning. It uses various devices to get you where it wants you to go. That might lead you to believe that figurative language is harder to understand than literal language, and that we should use literal language whenever possible. But that’s not quite true. In everyday usage, figurative language is usually used to help us understand what a literal statement cannot. Its most important job is to make difficult things easier to understand. It is also used this way in poetry.

For example, I might say to a child, “A country is like a school with a president instead of a principal.”  Here I’m using the figure of speech known as analogy to bring a new concept to a listener.

Figurative language is also used to give more weight or authority to a statement. I’m using figurative language if I say, “According to the White House” instead of “According to the president.” This figure is known as metonymy, the substitution of one thing for something closely associated with it.

If I say, “That was the funniest thing in the whole universe,” or “Hitler wasn’t very nice to the Jews,” I’m using yet other kinds of figurative language and again getting more out of the words than a literal statement could. The first statement is an example of hyperbole (also called exaggeration). The second is the opposite, litotes (or understatement).

We use many kinds of figurative language every day because we want to do more than just state facts. We use this sort of language all the time, usually without knowing we are doing so. The good news is that you do understand figurative language; you understand it so naturally that you probably do not even notice that you are interpreting such figures as irony , metaphor , simile , hyperbole, litotes, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, or synecdoche . So the first problem is just learning to recognize and name things you are already unconsciously familiar with. The second is to understand how these figures are being used in particular poems. Poems are likely to use figurative language more often and in more nuanced ways than we use it in everyday language.

That’s the bad news. Poems don’t always use metaphor to make hard things easier to understand, for example. Poems may use metaphor to make seemingly-simple things no longer simple. Remember, poems want you not just to understand but to experience the world in new ways. But we are so accustomed to seeing things however we see them that the work of a poet is quite difficult. We resist without even knowing we are resisting. And we may often fail to see figurative language in a poem for what it is. And even the most experienced readers of poems argue sometimes about what counts as a metaphor or a symbol in a poem and about what a particular figure means. This is something to love about poetry. You get to enter and participate in an ongoing conversation. But to do that, you need to ground yourself in the figures. You need to be able to name and point to them.

You might wonder how it is that experienced readers of poems can argue about what counts as a particular figure in a particular poem. This is because the very ideas of “literal” and “figurative” are not as clear as we might like to think they are.

Again, according to the standard definitions, figurative language is language that states its meaning indirectly. It represents one thing by means of another thing. The “president” is called “The White House”; the ocean is called a “pond.”  At the same time, literal language is language that states its meaning directly. The president is called the president, and the ocean is called the ocean.

But that already creates a problem. In one sense, all language is figurative. The distinction between “literal” and “figurative” language does not easily correspond to the facts. Unless the word “ocean” is something you could be tempted to swim on, we have to admit that the word “ocean” is something used to represent an object, and is therefore not literally literal. The word “ocean” is not the ocean. It stands for or represents the idea of the ocean. And representing one thing by another thing is, by definition, what figurative language does.

When we are talking about “literal” language we are merely separating off from all language that part which seems to be the most direct or transparent, which is to say the most commonly or habitually used representation of a given idea. (If I say, “What is that?” and point to the ocean, most people will say, “the ocean.” So we call that literal.)

(It doesn’t help matters that “literal” used in a figurative sense has now been included in the dictionary as an official definition of the word: “This chapter literally bored me to death,” for example. Usually, a dictionary definition of a word is another way of thinking of its literal (in the non-figurative sense) meaning.)

So, there is no such thing as an absolutely non-figurative language. This means that you can never absolutely guarantee that any statement, no matter how literal it seems, is not also figurative. Take this simple sentence: “He fell down the stairs.” You’ll probably want to say, “that’s obviously literal.” But is it? For it to be literal it has to describe an event that actually happened. Outside of a known context there’s no way to decide whether the sentence is literal or figurative or both (yes, a sentence can be both at the same time). The sentence “He fell down the stairs” could describe what it felt like for him to have his heart broken, or it may describe the effects of getting a demotion at work: “He went to the boss thinking he was going to get a promotion. He thought he was going up in the company. Instead, he fell down the stairs.”

Compare some other common figurative expressions that at first glance sound literal: “he was on fire,” “he bought the farm,” “he got burned,” and “he lost his way.”

So the difference between literal and figurative language has nothing to do with the words themselves. It has to do entirely with the way the words are used or understood in a specific context. The same sentence which in one context, or read one way, would be literal, in another context or read another way would be figurative. Because one of the most natural things to do with words is use them to represent (to represent either “things” or “concepts”), it will never be absolutely possible to prevent any words from being taken figuratively even if they were not meant that way (this is true in everyday language as well as poetry, but it doesn’t usually cause any confusion in everyday language).

The poet Marianne Moore, a great baseball fan, once described a new young poet by saying, “He looks good—on paper.” The effect of the sentence depends up on the reader’s understanding that poems are literally written on paper and that, figuratively speaking, “he looks good on paper” means “the information we have on him tells us he should be good, but we still have to see him perform.”

The boundary between literal and figurative isn’t always clear.

We also need to say a few words about the distinction we made above, that literal language is “more direct” than figurative. This may not be true either. So-called “literal” statements can only be considered more direct in regard to the most superficial meaning of the word “meaning,” that is, only in regard to the referential content of a statement. But recall what we have been saying all along: that “zeroing in on a meaning” is never more than one possibility of language. And it’s never the sole purpose of a poem. Figurative language is therefore not necessarily “roundabout.” Figurative language is often more direct than “literal” language. This is because in a poem the thing we are directing our attention at is an emotion or an experience rather than a meaning. If I say “Tom Brady was ‘on fire,’” I’m getting closer to the emotional truth of the event than if I say “Tom Brady played exceptionally well last night.” I am also getting closer to the truth of the experience of watching him this way than I would be if I listed his accomplishments. I’m giving an indication of what it was like to watch him play, what it may have been like for him to play. And if that’s what I want to do, the figurative language does it better—more directly.

Everything is guided by purpose, by what the poem is doing .

Compare these three examples:

1) She felt sad.

2) She felt as though she’d just lost her best friend.

3) She turned away and looked out the window. The world outside became blurry.

Let us say that example 1) is literal, i.e. that it refers to an actual woman or girl who really feels sad. In that case the statement is referentially true, but it carries little emotional content; example 2) would then be figurative. You will notice that it also captures somewhat more of the case. If true, it is more accurate than example 1) because its figure reproduces more of the emotional quality of the sadness than any purely literal statement could. But because the figure is a cliché, it still manages less emotional content than a careful writer probably desires. Example 3) is the most emotionally effective. It is the most effective because it is both literal and figurative. Turning away and looking out the window are actions that suggest more meaning than the actions alone convey. And the world did not really become blurry. Really, she started to cry.

We can say then that we need both figurative and literal language because they do different jobs. A writer, whether she is a writer of prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction, will choose the method of expression according to the job that needs to be done.

Now that we have an understanding of what poetic, or figurative language is, let’s define more precisely the most common examples so that you can practice identifying them when you come across them. They are: metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, litotes, irony, apostrophe, symbol, personification (there are dozens more, and part of an education back in the Renaissance would have been learning about and practicing all these different figures).

Here are some definitions and examples:

Metaphor— a figure of speech in which one thing (which usually is easy to understand) stands for another thing (which is often more abstract).   You’ll see that the metaphor works a little differently in each of the three examples below. In the first case, the metaphor has an obvious, simple relationship to what it refers to. In Bradstreet’s “The Poet to Her Book,” the title tells us that the poet is talking to her book. We quickly infer upon reading the poem that the book is compared metaphorically to a child.

If you do not read carefully, you may think Bradstreet is writing to a literal child. But as soon as this mistake is pointed out to you, you realize that she is, of course, pretending that her book is a child. The metaphor works because a book like a child is created by someone (a parent/author) whom it resembles and who cares for it and whose reputation depends on it.

On the other hand, a metaphor may have a less clear relationship between its two parts (its image and referent , more formally known as its vehicle and its tenor ). In Blake’s “The Tyger,” we know that the tiger is not quite a literal tiger. But it’s not entirely figurative either. The figure depends for its meaning on the “tigerness” of real tigers. But what exactly the tiger refers to or stands for is never made crystal clear.

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

You might also notice that within the overall metaphor of the tiger, there are other metaphors such as “burning bright.” “Burning bright” compares our metaphorical tiger to a fire.” But why is the tiger burning? When you read the poem, you will see that this tiger was made with a hammer and chain in a furnace. The metaphor makes a tiger the creation of a blacksmith (the blacksmith being a metaphor for God). This is not how “literal” tigers are made. Why has Blake chosen these metaphors? What effect do they have on our reading or understanding of the poem? Such questions can be answered—and they can be answered either well or poorly. But the answers will not be as simple or final in this poem as the answer to the question of the child/book figure in Bradstreet’s poem.

Still other metaphors may be impossible to pin down precisely. Both of the figures mentioned so far evoke emotion or feeling as well as meaning. But it is possible to take a figure so far into the emotional that it loses all sense of the intellectual meaning, as some claim T.S. Eliot does in this image from a poem we may read in a future week:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it as a soft October night, Curled once around the house, and fell asleep.

It’s clear that the poet is comparing fog to a cat (this is an implied metaphor because the cat is invoked without ever being named). The “catness” of fog is however far less obvious than the fearful power of blacksmith/God is to a tiger or the mother to child relationship of an author for her book. Moreover, this fog-cat metaphor is stretched out to such an absurd length that it begins to lose sense. We learn very much less about fog by comparing it to a cat than we learn about books by comparing them to children or about God by comparing Him to a blacksmith.

But the difficulties we may have with the cat-fog metaphor doesn’t mean that the poet has failed. In the context of the poem, it is clear that the metaphor is meant to reveal more about the state of mind of the title character than about the catness of fog.

We’ve barely begun to discuss the intricacies of metaphor. But that will be enough for now. We could spend the whole book on the subject. Many books have been written trying to understand all there is to understand about metaphor. We’ll go through the rest more quickly.

Simile. Simile is very much like a metaphor, but it uses an explicit comparative word, usually “like” or “as,” to compare one thing to another. So instead of saying “My book is my child,” You say, “My book is like a child.”

Metonymy and Synecdoche . Metonymy is the substitution of a name of an object closely associated with the word you have in mind for that word: “White House” for president. “Crown” for king. “The sweat of the brow” for “hard labor.” “Broadway” for the theater district in New York.

Synecdoche is similar to metonymy; it is the substitution of a name of some part of a thing for the whole thing: You say “trunk” for tree in a sentence such as “We have fourteen trunks on our property,” or “wheels” for “car,” in the expression, “a nice set of wheels.” With synecdoche you can also do the opposite and choose a whole to name a part. You can call a police officer “the law,” for example, as in “The law is coming to give me a speeding ticket.”

Hyperbole . We mentioned this above. It is exaggeration. “This book weighs a ton.”

Litotes . This too we mentioned above: understatement. Of home run slugger Barry Bonds, “He’s not the weakest person who ever played the game.”

Irony : saying one thing but meaning another, generally the opposite. Saying of an ugly painting, “Oh, isn’t that pretty .” In irony we perceive that the words deliberately fail to coincide with their usual meaning.

Apostrophe : In an apostrophe, we speak to an inanimate object or an absent person. “Western wind, when will thou blow?” I’m talking to the wind.

Symbol : The use of a verbal object or quality of an object to stand for an abstract idea. The black hats worn by bad guys in Westerns and the white hats worn by Good Guys are symbolic of evil and good. Notice that they are not metaphors, but they could be metonymy, since we somewhat arbitrarily associate white with good and black with evil.

Personification : Ascribing the qualities of a human being to an inanimate object or an abstraction. “The waves sang to the moon.” (There’s a fancier word for this as well: anthropomorphism . It’s a fun word to throw around at parties.)

Two more notes: First, these are dictionary kinds of definitions. A poet’s use of figures of speech may not be as straightforward as these definitions may lead you to believe. Second, a given example of figurative language may qualify as more than one type of language. A symbol can be metonymic and ironic all at the same time. I may want to use a sword to symbolize the sexual prowess of a knight, but since a sword is also associated with knights, it may also be said to be a metonymy. I may say “the sword did battle with the harem.” If the sword turns out to be fake, rubber perhaps, and flops down when it is pulled it from its scabbard, the symbol of a rubber sword becomes ironic. Poets often use such complex figures.

Ted Talk: James Geary, Metaphorically Speaking

Video Lecture: Figurative Language

Assigned Poems

• Shakespeare Sonnets # 18  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” # 73 “That time of year thou mayest in me behold,” and #130 “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”
• Gioia, “Money”
• Plath, “Metaphors”
• Ciardi, “Most Like an Arch This Marriage”
• Stevenson, “The Demolition”
• Donne, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
• Donne, “The Flea”
• Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
• Raine, “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home”
• Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind” (example of apostrophe)
• Jeffers, “Hands” (example of personification and apostrophe)
• Burns, “Oh, my love is like a red, red rose”   (example of simile)

Some Poems Suggested by Lindsay and Bergstrom (not required):

William Blake, “The Lamb”  (Links to an external site.)

                          “The Tyger”  (Links to an external site.)

Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill”  (Links to an external site.)

Sarah Lindsay, “Without Warning”  (Links to an external site.)

Jane Hirshfield, “Green Striped Melons”  (Links to an external site.)

Alice Fogel, “Morning Glory”  (Links to an external site.)

Wesley McNair, “What Became”  (Links to an external site.)

Cynthia Huntington, “Multiple Sclerosis”  (Links to an external site.)

Maxine Kumin, “After Love”  (Links to an external site.)

Robert Bly, “Seeing the Eclipse in Maine”

Intro to Poetry Copyright © by Alan Lindsay and Candace Bergstrom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Identify Parts of Speech

Last Updated: March 15, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Alexander Peterman, MA . Alexander Peterman is a Private Tutor in Florida. He received his MA in Education from the University of Florida in 2017. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 388,024 times.

Parts of speech are categories that are used to describe each word's function in a sentence. The best way to identify a word's part of speech is to think about what role the word plays in the sentence, but there are also a few clues that can help you figure out the part of speech if you are unsure about the word's function.

Analyzing the Word's Function

• Proper nouns are used to name a specific person, place, or thing, and the main words are always capitalized (Fred, New York, the Declaration of Independence).
• Nouns can be either singular or plural.
• Nouns can be possessive, in which case they typically end in 's or s'.

• Some pronouns stand in for people's names (he, our, they, hers, etc.).
• Other pronouns represent an object or idea (it, these, this, etc.).
• Pronouns may also stand in for very indefinite nouns that may be difficult to name without the use of a pronoun (everyone, no one, something, etc).

• Auxiliary verbs (also known as helping verbs) are words that are used to change the tense of the main verb (will, did, would, etc.). These are still considered verbs.

• Numbers are considered adjectives when they are used to answer the question "how many?"
• Articles (a, an, and the) are considered adjectives by many because they answer the question "which one?" However, some people consider articles to be a separate part of speech.

• Adverbs may also modify other adverbs. (I ran very quickly.)

• Coordinating conjunctions are used to join two clauses that are equally important to the sentence. There are 7 coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, nor, or, so, and yet. (I like cats, but I don't like dogs.)
• Subordinating conjunctions are used to join a main clause and a subordinate clause, which is less important to the sentence. (I went outside, although it was raining.)

Using Word Placement and Punctuation Clues

• Both the subject and object of a sentence will contain a noun or pronoun. This means that a sentence that has both a subject and an object will contain a noun or pronoun both before and after the verb. ( I ate the apple .)
• The subject and object may contain modifiers such as adjectives as well.
• When the sentence has a direct object, it will come directly after the verb. (I like cookies .) When the sentence has an indirect object, it will come after a preposition. (I gave the card to Frank .)

• Adjectives are almost always found before nouns and pronouns (We look at a red dress.) or after the linking verb "to be" (The dress is red .) [10] X Research source
• When adverbs are used to modify adjectives, they are almost always found right before the adjective. (The meal was truly delicious.) [11] X Research source
• When adverbs are used to modify verbs, they may be found before the subject ( Later I will walk to school.), directly before the verb (I will carefully clean the artifacts .), or directly after the verb. (I go to the park frequently .)

• Conjunctions like "and" and "but" are sometimes used at the beginning of a sentence, although this is more rare. When it is done, you should be able to identify the other clause or phrase in the previous sentence.

• Not all interjections are marked by exclamation points. Don't rely on exclamations as the only way to recognize interjections.
• Another clue that a word might be an interjection is that it is used alone. If there are other words in the sentence, it is less likely to be an interjection.

• Keep in mind there may be an adjective, adverb, and/or article between the preposition and the noun or pronoun. These modifiers are all considered to be part of the noun or pronoun phrase. (We paid for the very expensive jeans.)

Using Suffix Clues to Identify Parts of Speech

• -ion (population)
• -sion (tension)
• -tion (attention)
• -acy (accuracy)
• -age (image)
• -ance (allegiance)
• -ence (permanence)
• -hood (childhood)
• -ar (scholar)
• -or (editor)
• -ism (idealism)
• -ist (realist)
• -ment (government)
• -ness (sadness)
• -y (beauty)
• -ity (capacity)

• -al (clerical)
• -ful (wonderful)
• -ly (friendly)
• -ic (chronic)
• -ish (squeamish)
• -like (childlike)
• -ous (contagious)
• -ate accurate
• -able (laughable)
• -ible (horrible)

• -ify (typify)
• -ate (proliferate)
• -ize (rationalize)
• -en (tighten)

• There are some words that end in -ly that are not adverbs (butterfly), so be careful not to overgeneralize.
• There are also a few adverbs that do not end in -ly (well, fast, very, etc.).

Practice Questions and Answers

Community Q&A

• Context is key, as some words can act as multiple different parts of speech, depending on their role in a sentence. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/noun-what.htm
• ↑ https://www.scribbr.com/nouns-and-pronouns/pronouns/
• ↑ https://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/grammar/parts_of_speech.html
• ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/grammar/prepositions
• ↑ https://www.scribbr.com/language-rules/conjunctions/
• ↑ https://gsalearningsupport.com/skills-for-study/communicating-your-learning/communicating-clearly-in-writing/clear-sentence-construction/clear-sentences-use-correct-grammar/subject-verb-and-object/
• ↑ http://grammarist.com/grammar/adjectives/
• ↑ https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adverb-position.htm
• ↑ https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/exclamation-mark/
• ↑ http://www.southcentral.edu/images/departments/ASC/documents/Suffixes_that_Indicate_Part_of_Speech_2.pdf

About This Article

To identify different parts of speech, analyze the function that the word plays in a sentence. If the word names a person, place, thing, or idea, it is a noun. Label a word as a pronoun if it takes the place of a noun. If you see a word that expresses an action, that is a verb, and words that modify a verb are adverbs. If a word modifies a noun or pronoun, it is an adjective. To learn how to identify prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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• English Grammar
• Grammar Exercises
• Parts Of Speech Exercises

Parts of Speech Exercises with Answers

Every topic in English grammar requires good understanding and a lot of practice. A thorough knowledge of the various grammatical components and their application is necessary to master the English language . This article provides you with a few practice exercises for parts of speech . Check it out.

Table of Contents

Exercise 1 – identify the adverb, exercise 2 – use the appropriate pronoun.

• Exercise 3 –  Underline the Preposition

Exercise 4 – Identify the Part of Speech

Frequently asked questions on parts of speech exercises.

Give below are a few exercises. Try them out and assess your understanding of the different parts of speech.

Go through the given sentences and identify the adverb.

• We have seen this before.
• The postman comes to her daily.
• The man repeated the same thing thrice.
• Your friend called again.
• Please walk forward.
• The horse ran away.
• My brother writes clearly.
• The army fought bravely.
• The mangoes are almost ripe.
• Are you keeping well?

Fill the blanks with correct pronouns.

• Shyam is my brother. ___ study in the same class
• Between Ritu and me, __ am the younger one.
• Do you see this book with my name on it? It is ___.
• Miss Gwen is our new class teacher. ___ is very sweet.
• While cutting vegetables, Mitu cut ___.
• The jury got divided among ___.
• I’m coming too. Please wait for __.
• Nobody but ___ was present.
• ___ book is better than the other.
• Is the mug ___? It was on your table.

Exercise 3 – Underline the Preposition

Identify the prepositions in the following passage.

Goldilocks used to live with her parents in a cabin near the forest. One day, she decided to go for a walk. She strolled down the lane that led to the forest and came across a cottage. Feeling intrigued, she decided to check whose house it was. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. Then she decided to go in and check. Once she came into the cottage, she saw three soup bowls kept on the table. Feeling hungry, she drank the soup out of the smallest bowl. She saw a flight of stairs that led to a room above. She decided to go and see the rooms. On reaching the rooms, she saw there were three beds. Feeling sleepy with all the walking and hot soup, she decided to take a nap and slept on the smallest bed. When she woke up, she saw three bears standing in front of her, and the smallest bear among them crying loudly. Terrified, she started screaming and ran past the bear family to reach her home.

Goldilocks used to live with her parents in a cabin near the forest. One day, she decided to go for a walk. She strolled  down the lane that led to the forest and came across a cottage. Feeling intrigued, she decided to check whose house it was. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. Then she decided to go in and check. Once she came into the cottage, she saw three soup bowls kept on the table. Feeling hungry, she drank the soup out of the smallest bowl. She saw a flight of stairs that led to a room above . She decided to go and see the rooms. On reaching the rooms, she saw there were three beds. Feeling sleepy with all the walking and hot soup, she decided to take a nap and slept on the smallest bed. When she woke up, she saw three bears standing in front of her, and the smallest bear among them crying loudly. Terrified, she started screaming and ran past the bear family to reach her home.

Go through the following sentences and identify the part of speech of the underlined words.

• Namitha is not coming today.
• My mom will be leaving to Bangalore tomorrow .
• The teacher asked the students to stand.
• He is my brother.
• There is a cat under the table.
• The clothes did not dry as it was raining all night.
• Sheena and her sister dance well .
• I am wearing a green dress for the party.
• Oh ! That is really sad.
• She is coming with me.
• Verb, adverb
• Preposition
• Conjunction
• Conjunction, adverb
• Interjection

What are parts of speech?

Words are classified into different classes called parts of speech depending on their usage.

What comes under parts of speech?

Noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection come under parts of speech.

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