What figurative language is

A term you'll meet in literary technique.

Figurative language is language that means something other than, or beyond, its literal sense. When a writer says time "flew" or a heart was "broken," no clock has wings and no organ has cracked — the words point past themselves to create an image, a comparison, or an effect. It's the opposite of literal language.

The major figures

The most common types include the simile (a comparison using "like" or "as"), the metaphor (a direct identification of one thing as another), personification (giving human qualities to non-human things), hyperbole (deliberate exaggeration), and metonymy and synecdoche (naming something by a related part or association). Each is a different way of saying more than the plain words allow.

Why writers use it

Figurative language makes the abstract concrete and the familiar fresh. A metaphor can compress a complex feeling into a single image; a simile can make you see something exactly. It engages the imagination and the senses in a way literal statement rarely does — which is why poetry leans on it so heavily.

Figurative vs. literal

The basic contrast: literal language means precisely what it says; figurative language asks you to interpret. "She was exhausted" is literal; "she was running on empty" is figurative. Recognising which mode a text is in — and when it shifts — is a basic but essential reading skill.

How to analyse it

When you spot a figure of speech, don't just name it — explain the comparison or effect and what it reveals. The question is never only "what device is this?" but "what does this figure let the writer say, and why is it better than saying it plainly?"

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