Definition of Simile

A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares unlike things, usually using the words "like" or "as." Hughes answers the question, "What happens to a dream deferred?" with a series similes: "Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore—/And then run?/Does it stink like rotten meat?/Or crust and sugar over—/like a syrupy sweet?" Frost extends a simile throughout his sonnet, when he compares the woman he loves to a tent: "She is as in a field a silken tent/At midday when a sunny summer breeze/Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent/So that in guys it gently sways at ease…." By using similes, poets support their readers in understanding the meaning of poems.