What is a Metaphor? Learn with Examples

When someone says “my brother is a night owl”, nobody imagines a boy with feathers. We understand straight away that he stays up late. That quick, almost automatic jump from the words to the meaning is what a metaphor relies on.

Definition

A metaphor describes something by saying it is something else. The two things aren’t really the same, but they share a quality, and the metaphor points to it.

He is a night owl. (He’s awake at night, like an owl.)

The classroom was a zoo. (It was noisy and wild.)

Her words were a warm blanket. (They were comforting.)

Reading a Metaphor in Three Steps

When kids meet a metaphor in a poem or a comprehension passage, these three questions help unpack it.

1. What two things are being compared? In Life is a rollercoaster: life and a rollercoaster.

2. What do they have in common? Both have ups and downs, and moments that are scary and moments that are thrilling.

3. Why did the writer choose this comparison? To make the reader feel how unpredictable life can be, instead of just being told.

Step 3 is the one exam questions usually ask about, and the one most students skip.

Metaphor or Simile?

Both compare two different things. A simile uses like or as to make the comparison obvious. A metaphor leaves those words out and simply says one thing is the other.

A metaphor is usually the bolder of the two because it doesn’t hedge with “like”. It asks the reader to accept the comparison completely.

One caution: not every sentence with like is a simile. “I like mangoes” isn’t comparing anything. A simile has to compare two different kinds of things. And if a sentence gives a human action to something that isn’t human, as in “the wind howled”, that’s personification, a close relative of the metaphor.

Metaphors Kids Already Use

Many everyday phrases are metaphors that have been used so often we’ve stopped noticing them:

• the leg of a table

• the heart of the city

• time is running out

• a sea of faces

• a bright student

• she broke the news

• I’m drowning in homework

Pointing a few of these out is a good way to show kids that metaphors aren’t only for poets. They’re part of how everyone speaks.

Extended Metaphors

Sometimes a writer carries one metaphor through several lines, adding detail each time. This is called an extended metaphor. A famous example comes from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It:

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.

The world is a stage, people are actors, birth and death are entrances and exits, and the stages of a life are the different roles one actor plays. The comparison grows line by line.

Mixed Metaphors: A Mistake to Avoid

A mixed metaphor starts with one comparison and switches to another that doesn’t fit. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, and nip it in the bud” mixes a road trip with gardening, and the result sounds muddled.

When kids write, it’s best to pick one comparison and stick with it. Catching a mixed metaphor in their own draft is the kind of editing kids practise in creative writing classes for kids.

Try Writing One

Ask your kid to finish these with a metaphor, not a simile:

1. My little sister is ______.

2. The thunder was ______.

3. Monday morning is ______.

Then ask them to explain what their two things have in common. “Monday morning is a mountain” works if they can say why: it feels hard to get over. The explaining is what turns a nice phrase into real understanding.

Writing and explaining figures of speech gets easier with a teacher and a few classmates to bounce ideas off. If you’d like to try that, book a trial class at Bambinos. The first one is free.