Is a simile actually a type of metaphor?

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If so, some people have been lying their asses off. They're both comparisons, sure, but a simile is a comparison using 'like' or 'as', a metaphor is a comparison where you replace one concept with another. How can a simile's definition be encompassed under that of a metaphor?

I don't get it...

Also, is a comparison using 'more than' considered a simile?

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the camel is the ship of the desert
or
the camel is like a ship on the desert

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Hi cold storage and welcome to a2k. Dyslexia has given you a good answer. From the way I understand it, a simile is not a metaphor. A metaphor takes the comparison to the next level, wherein you're no longer making a comparison. You're saying that something IS something.

That man is like a mouse--jumpy and afraid of everything.

That man is a mouse.

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Thanks, both of you. I certainly was always taught the two were entirely different comparative tools, but check this out...

...the Poetry Primer one says personification is a type of metaphor, too.

Wouldn't the fact that a metaphor has a very precise definition of its own that doesn't apply to its supposed subsidiaries negate its being some sort of umbrella term for comparative language tools? I'd have thought so...

...it'd work like this otherwise;

Types of Metaphors
Metaphor
Simile
Personification

^ that seems a little silly. Plus, every dictionary and English teacher I ever had is a shameless liar if a simile is actually a metaphor. I mean, you'd imagine that if that were the case, the dictionary definition would look like;

metaphor 1. A group of various comparative language tools. 2. A figure of speech in which blah blah etc
simile 1. One of the three types of metaphor. 2. A fugure of speech in which blah blah etc.

- it doesn't, though.

(also, is a comparison using 'more than'/'worse than' considered a simile?)

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dyslexia and Roberta are right: saying "A is B" is a metaphor; saying "A is like B" is a simile.

Perhaps you're confusing "metaphor" with "analogy." An analogy is, in effect, an extended simile. For instance, when Homer Simpson says "a woman is like a beer," he is offering a simile. But it's an analogy when he states: "Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you'd step over your own mother just to get one! But you can't stop at one. You wanna drink another woman!" (although, at the end there, he actually slips into a metaphor).

So a simile is not a metaphor, but it can be viewed as a type of analogy.

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A good mental trick i have for this distinction is to consider a metaphor as a description of what patently is not, in order to understand what is.

Metaphorical thought is essential to invention of any kind. Wilbur and Orville had to be able to conceive of a heavier-than-air device, powered sufficiently to use a motive device which would lift it off the ground, and they largely had to discard all previous conceptions to come up with the Wright flyer. A chef who wants to plate up the best meal you ever ate, needs to be able to look at a table full of various foods (that which is), and envision, before the execution thereof, the entire process of production which puts a plate of good food in a good presentation on the table before you (that which is not).

A man is patently not a mouse. But describing him as such (that which is not), you derive a vivid image of that man's character and mannerisms (that which is).

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Yeah, you're all confirming what I was already sure I knew. This guy on another forum is trying to convince me that similes, metonyms, synecdoches, etc, are all different types of metaphors. I was just arguing all the same points as you are, 'til he provided me with that link, that made me think twice. Anyone care to explain it?

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Well you can always retaliate with links of your own.

But the thing is, this distinction is the type that can easily go both ways, leaving it in a "he said, she said" situation.

Mary NicoleSilvester, on http://teenwriting.about.com/library/weekly/aa070902a.htm wrote:

A simile is also a figure of speech and, like metaphor, it compares unlike things in order to describe something. Similes do not state that something is another thing, however. Instead, they compare using the word "like" or "as." Some scholars refer to simile as a type of metaphor, as it's easy to see why.

Per Aage Brandt, from the Center for Semiotic Research, University of Aarhus, at http://www.hum.au.dk/semiotics/docs/epub/arc/paab/chrs/catachresis.htm wrote:

My second conclusion here is that similes have strong, immediate and substantial figurative transfers (in the protasis part), and delayed formal and dynamic transfers (in the apodosis part); and that - unlike metaphors - they are freely constructible, precisely for this reason: they are inventions presenting unexpected figurative projections, motivated by specific dynamic contents that are non-trivial as properties of the target.

You can find a lot with a simple search, a good query that I didn't try (but that you should) is simile vs metaphor or vice versa.

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Hiya Cold, metaphor 1. A group of various comparative language tools. 2. A figure of speech in which blah blah etc
simile 1. One of the three types of metaphor. 2. A fugure of speech in which blah blah etc.

My dictionary doesn't have the first definition of metaphor. It is very specific in its description of a metaphor. Definition 1 shown here would suggest that a simile is a metaphor, metaphorically speaking. :-)

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Roberta wrote:

My dictionary doesn't have the first definition of metaphor. It is very specific in its description of a metaphor. Definition 1 shown here would suggest that a simile is a metaphor, metaphorically speaking. :-)

Yeah, that's my point, no dictionary I've ever seen or heard tell of has had that first definition of metaphor. Which would lead me to believe that this dude is talking directly out of his ass...

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i totally agree with Roberta. at least, that's what my eng tchr taught me

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Would you not be speaking metaphorically by using a simile?

Metaphor : "a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity"

Simile: "a figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds"

-------------

"Her nose is as big as a melon, metaphorically speaking."

It seems to me that a simile IS a metaphor, by definition.

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cold storage wrote:

...this dude is talking directly out of his ass...

Nice metaphor!

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kickycan wrote:

cold storage wrote:
...this dude is talking directly out of his ass...

Nice metaphor!

What if he was a ventriloquist with a donkey? Would that statement be simile or metaphor?

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Hmmm...

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Is a simile actually a type of metaphor?

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