figurative

Definition

Of use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures.

Etymology

From Middle French figuratif.

Example Sentences

• "The lovers she seems to pursue with her figurative language in fact retreat under the barrage of similes, metaphors and fables."
• "It is important to emphasize that Kafka as an autistic person was not always consciously aware his interpretations and writings were literal, thus the line between literal and figurative were not consciously clear for Kafka. This blurring stems from the specific focus of autistic persons who look at external predictable behavior of people and situations rather than at internal mental states of individuals. Kafka wrote from his autistic perspective in which the literal form is a default state of understanding the external world. For Kafka to move beyond the literal is not only to express that which cannot be said literally, but to express that which is not literal. The figurative is not simply not the literal, it is more than the literal. It is beyond the literal. The gap between the literal and the figurative, across which the reader is compelled by language to traverse, is for Kafka also the space which language cannot adequately express. The use of parable by Kafka marks his most concentrated effort to examine the space between language and that which is beyond language."
• "This, they will say, was figurative, and served, by God's appointment, but for a time, to shadow out the true glory of a more divine sanctity."

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