The difference between simile and metaphor

What is a simile?

Similes grant writers the opportunity to compare two things using the words “like” or “as.” You use similes to create vivid imagery or to describe an abstract concept in a way your audience will catch onto more easily. Check out these examples of similes to wrap your head around them better:

• “Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him.” – Total Eclipse by Annie Dillard
• “But when she moved that way, twisting, hurling herself into controlled falls, landing running, she seemed not only boneless, but aquatic—something swimming through the air as though it were water.” – Bloodchild by Octavia Butler
• “She wore a tailored navy business suit like a punishment, the jacket pulled uncomfortably tight across her shoulders.” – Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
• “Like bees swarming after their queen, mother and daughters hovered about Mr. March the next day, neglecting everything to look at, wait upon, and listen to the new invalid, who was in a fair way to be killed by kindness.” – Little Women by Louise May Alcott
• “Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.” – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn.” – Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• “His hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon his brow.” – The Nightengale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde
• “My heart is like an apple tree, Whose boughs are bent with thickest fruit;” – A Birthday by Christina Rossetti.
• “It’s been a hard day’s night, and I been working like a dog, It’s been a hard day’s night, I should be sleeping like a log.” – A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles
• “You’re as cuddly as a cactus; you’re as charming as an eel.” – The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Write with Confidence using Editor

Elevate your writing with real-time, intelligent assistance

Learn more

To write a simile yourself, start with one of these two basic structures:

• The [subject] was as [adjective] as a [comparison]
• The [subject] [verb] like a [comparison]

Play around with comparing one thing to another thing and explore how it elevates your writing. You may surprise yourself with the profound ideas you come up with.

What is a metaphor?

A metaphor also compares one thing to another, but where a simile declares something is like another, a metaphor declares something is another. As a form of figurative language, you don’t take metaphors literally. Metaphors require an audience to take a wider mental leap than similes do because you state one thing is another, but when done properly, audiences love it.

Don’t confuse metaphor with allegory. A metaphor is a sentence or short segment that equates two things as the same. Allegory, on the other hand, is a complete narrative that seems to be about one thing on the surface but contains some other meaning beneath.

Look through these examples for a clearer picture of metaphors:

• “I’m a riddle in nine syllables, an elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils.” – Metaphors by Sylvia Plath
• “Love had the feather and muscle of wings.” – Love by Eavan Boland
• “In her hands, I always became the pawn. I could only run away. And she was the queen, able to move in all directions, relentless in her pursuit, always able to find my weakest spots.” – The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” – From Mother to Son by Langston Hughes
• “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” – Dune by Frank Herbert
• “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” – As You Like It by William Shakespeare
• “Love is a Battlefield.” – Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar
• “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, Cryin all the time, Well you ain’t never caught a rabbit, And you ain’t no friend of mine.” – Hound Dog by Elvis Presley
• “But listen love, love is not some kind of victory march, no
  It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah” – Hallelujah by Leonard Cohan
• “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.”—Albert Einstein

There’s no clear formula to follow when writing a metaphor, so you may find them trickier to write than similes. To try it out, brainstorm the type of mood or comparison you want to make with a given subject. Freely associate words related to that mood, theme, or message. Finally, play around with writing [subject] is [comparison] and roll with it to see what you come up with. Read it out loud to determine if it works or just sounds silly. You’ll know a powerful metaphor when you find it.

When to use similes vs. metaphors

The biggest difference between similes and metaphors is the scale. You generally use similes for quick comparisons to illustrate a point, and you generally use metaphors to evoke powerful emotions.

Take the song Wind Beneath My Wings sung by Bette Midler. The lyrics compare someone being the support for someone else’s success to being akin to an invisible wind that lifts an eagle high into the air. The main chorus goes:

“I could fly higher than an eagle, for you are the wind beneath my wings.”

And it’s powerful. The imagery makes it powerful, and the use of metaphor makes it powerful. Think of how the lyrics would read if it was written as simile instead,

“I could fly higher than an eagle, for you’re like the wind beneath my wings.”

The message remains, but the impact weakens.

Let’s turn to a completely different song with similar lyrics but done in simile: Fly Like an Eagle written by Steve Miller Band, and later covered by Seal. The main chorus goes:

“I want to fly like an eagle, to the sea, Fly like and eagle, let my spirit carry me.”

In this song, using simile works perfectly whereas metaphor would not.

Next time you sit down at the keyboard to write, play around with metaphors and similes and see what works and what doesn’t.