Literary Terms

It is a comparison of 2 things using the words "like" or "as".

e.g.  He is as cute as a button.

It is a comparison of 2 things but does NOT use the words "like" or "as".

• e.g.  She is a mother hen.
• (this means that she looks after her children well...mother hens sit on their eggs to keep them really warm and safe)

It is a literary term for giving human qualities to an object.

• e.g. The baseball screamed past the player.
• (the baseball isn't actually screaming like a person...it is moving very quickly)

It is a literary device when a sentence contains many words that begin with the same sound or letter.

• e.g.  She saw seashells by the sea shore.
•        Daisy Duck drank daintily from the dish.

Onomatopoeia refers to words that sound exactly or almost exactly like the thing that they represent. Many words that we use for animal or machine noises are onomatopoeia words, such as “moo” for the sound a cow makes and “beep-beep” for the noise of a car horn. Words like “slurp,” “bang,” and “crash” are also onomatopoeia words.

This is a very obvious exageration. 

• e.g.  I'm so hungry that I could eat a horse.
• (you wouldn't actually eat a horse, but you are very hungry)