In simple words, what is a metaphor?

Answer 1

'He was a rocket, racing around the track'. This reference to someone running a race directly compares them to a rocket without using 'like' or 'as'. He wasn't running 'like a rocket', he 'was a rocket'.

Answer 2

A metaphor is a comparison of two or more unrelated things without using words such as "like" or "as."

Ex. Happiness is a warm puppy.
Love is the blanket that keeps me warm

Metaphor may be directly stated or implied:

Stated: Friendship is the wings of the wind.
Implied: Friendship flies on wings of the wind.

IMPORTANT (which previous answers have not made clear): a true metaphor is the comparison of two or more UNRELATED or dissimilar things.

NOT: Terror is fear with multiple rrrr's.
BUT: Terror is a cancer on our consciousness.

NOT: A Chevrolet is a Cadillac that costs less.
BUT: A Chevrolet is an apple among automobiles; a Cadillac is a pineapple.

Answer 3

In my own words... a metaphor is a way of explaining a thing or a thought or an emotion in such a way that it takes from similar experiences and examples and uses them to brighten or clear the meaning of the original word through familiar association.

A metaphor for Blue eyes for example could be lucid pools. Not using the words "as or like" to bridge the comparison.

It takes often in adamant object and embodies them with the stuff of personality which makes them seem real and more personal so as to enable the reader or listener to sympathize with the poet or the writer by familiar common example.


From the book of forms by Louis Turco a metaphor is defined as: "Figures of speech." (imagery) or tropes are word pictures; they are to be found on the sensory level of literature and poetry they are intended to evoke the senses. their are 4 basic kinds of tropes; Descriptions, similes, metaphors, and rhetorical tropes."

Read: Rainer Maria Rilke. He was a genius at the art of metaphor! Mostly written in German ( I learned to read in German to be able to read his poems in their origianl language)

Answer 4

A metaphor is a comparison of 2 things without using the words as or like.
Example:The sky was pitch black.
The colour black describes the sky.GET IT!

Answer 5

Metaphor is a technic used to represent a complicated thngs in a simple way,by relating the message to the common/known things. ( Metophor is mostly used in Poems and Advertisements.)

E.g : Seaguls fly into middle of ocean to get the fresh fishes. and other birds eat the dead fishes on the coast. (this is a metaphor)

Actual message is - Acheivers will work hard to get more benifit and they will suceed in life.but lazy people work in lazy way and they will not suceed in life.

Answer 6

A metaphor is something that symbolizes, explains or describes something.

Answer 7

A symbolic way of talking about something, i.e. sleeping as a 'metaphor' for death.

Answer 8

metaphore is an extra word or words to describe something or describe an action ie.......he runs LIKE THE WIND...
like the wind is the metaphore.

Answer 9

A comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects
for instance...
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances; — (William Shakespeare

Answer 10

It is similar to a parable. But instead of being a story,it is a phrase that makes makes a comparison without using "like" or "as".