From Latin simile (first attested 1393), originally from simile, neuter form of similis.

• IPA: /ˈsɪməli/

simile

1. A figure of speech in which one thing is explicitly compared to another, using e.g. like or as.

   Antonyms: dissimile

   Hypernyms: figure of speech

   Coordinate term: (when the comparison is implicit) metaphor

   • 1826, Thomas Bayly Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanours, volume 33:

     He made a simile of George the third to Nebuchadnezzar, and of the prince regent to Belshazzar, and insisted that the prince represented the latter in not paying much attention to what had happened to kings […]

   • 1905, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter 2, in Where Angels Fear to Tread, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC ↗, page 57 ↗:

     What follows should be prefaced with some simile—the simile of a powder-mine, a thunderbolt, an earthquake—for it blew Philip up in the air and flattened him on the ground and swallowed him up in the depths.

   • 1925, Countee Cullen, Fruit of the Flower:

     My father is a quiet man / With sober, steady ways; / For simile, a folded fan; / His nights are like his days.

• French: comparaison
• German: Vergleich, Gleichnis
• Italian: similitudine
• Portuguese: símile
• Russian: сравне́ние
• Spanish: símil