Figurative Language Decoder

Metaphor is an AI tool for understanding and creating figurative language.

Supply a line, phrase, expression or passage, and Metaphor identifies the figurative language in use, explains the meaning of the expression in context, and shows how the comparison, image or expression produces that meaning.

Describe an idea to express, and Metaphor creates figurative language for the idea. Supply an existing metaphor, simile or other expression, and Metaphor rewrites, strengthens or changes the image while preserving or changing the intended meaning.

figurative language checker

• Determines whether wording is literal or figurative.

figurative language identifier

• Identifies the figure or figures of speech in a word, phrase, sentence or passage.

figurative language scanner

• Works across a longer passage and returns every figure it contains.

literary device checker

• Names the device in use, including devices that are not comparisons.

figure of speech classifier

• Compares two figures of speech and determines which one fits the expression supplied.

metaphor checker

• Determines whether a given line is a metaphor.

simile checker

• Determines whether a comparison is a simile and how it differs from the metaphor version.

idiom checker

• Determines whether an expression is an idiom rather than a live comparison.

hyperbole checker

• Determines whether a statement is hyperbole rather than a claim meant literally.

personification checker

• Determines whether a line is personification or anthropomorphism, and what separates the two.

irony and sarcasm checker

• Determines whether a line is verbal irony, situational irony or sarcasm.

metonymy and synecdoche checker

• Determines whether a substitution uses a related term or a part standing for a whole.

oxymoron and paradox checker

• Determines whether a contradiction is an oxymoron in the wording or a paradox in the idea.

understatement and litotes checker

• Determines whether a statement is deliberate understatement, and whether it works by negation.

sound device checker

• Identifies onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance.

symbolism analyzer

• Identifies what an object, colour or image is standing for and where that meaning comes from.

dead metaphor checker

• Identifies comparisons used so long they now read as plain description rather than as figures.

mixed metaphor checker

• Separates the images in a comparison that has collapsed into more than one.

figurative meaning decoder

• Separates the literal wording from the intended idea.
• Explains what an expression communicates in context.

source and target domain mapper

• Identifies what is being compared to what.
• Identifies what is actually being mapped onto what.

mapping correspondence analyzer

• Identifies which qualities transfer across a comparison and which do not.

analogy breakdown checker

• Identifies where a comparison stops holding.

conceptual metaphor finder

• Identifies the underlying conceptual metaphor that a group of everyday expressions all draw on.

metaphorical framing analyzer

• Identifies the assumptions an image introduces and how those assumptions present the subject.
• Identifies how a figure frames power, conflict, time, work, identity or relationships.

highlighting and hiding analyzer

• Identifies which aspects of a subject a comparison brings forward and which it pushes out of view.

critical metaphor analysis

• Identifies what a particular choice of image is doing for the person using it.

related figure comparison

• Compares the competing images available for one subject and states what each one changes.

analogy and metaphor comparison

• Separates an analogy from a metaphor and states which the expression is doing.

figurative language generator

• Creates a metaphor, simile or other figurative expression for an idea.
• Produces alternative images that create different effects.

extended metaphor builder

• Develops a single image across a passage rather than a line.

figurative language rewriter

• Replaces the image in an existing comparison.
• States how a different image changes the qualities, assumptions and emphasis carried into the same subject.

ambiguous figurative language

• Explains competing readings where classification genuinely overlaps or depends on context.

Enter a single word, phrase, sentence or longer passage. Include the surrounding context when tone, speaker, situation or audience could change the interpretation.

To create figurative language, describe the idea to be expressed and the quality or effect the image should carry.

check whether a line is figurative

questions people ask:

"Is this a metaphor?" · "Is this figurative language?" · "Is the pen is mightier than the sword literal or figurative?" · "What is figurative and literal language?"

identify what figurative language is in a sentence

questions people ask:

"What figurative language is this sentence?" · "What type of figurative language is this sentence?" · "I am a slug when I run — what figurative language is that?" · "Is pitter-patter onomatopoeia?"

tell one figure from another

questions people ask:

"Idiom vs metaphor." · "Idiom vs simile." · "Hyperbole vs idiom." · "Idiom vs proverb vs metaphor." · "Difference between idioms and figures of speech."

tell irony from sarcasm

questions people ask:

"Is nice one sarcasm or irony?" · "What is the difference between verbal and situational irony?" · "Is this dramatic irony?" · "Was that sarcasm or just blunt?"

tell personification from anthropomorphism

questions people ask:

"Is the wind whispered personification or anthropomorphism?" · "Is a talking animal personification?" · "The car groaned — which is that?"

tell metonymy from synecdoche

questions people ask:

"Is the White House said metonymy or synecdoche?" · "Is all hands on deck synecdoche?" · "What is the difference between metonymy and synecdoche?"

decode what a figurative expression means

questions people ask:

"What does drowning in paperwork mean?" · "What is time is a thief actually saying?" · "Explain the figurative meaning of he's carrying the whole team." · "How do I explain a metaphor?"

map what is being compared

questions people ask:

"What is being compared in life is a rollercoaster?" · "What qualities transfer when an argument is called a war?" · "What is the tenor and vehicle here?"

find where the comparison breaks down

questions people ask:

"Where does the brain is a computer analogy stop working?" · "Where does this analogy break down?" · "What are the limits of this comparison?"

find the conceptual metaphor behind a set of expressions

questions people ask:

"Time is money — what is the conceptual metaphor?" · "What do spend, save and waste time all have in common?" · "Is argument is war a conceptual metaphor?"

identify assumptions and framing

questions people ask:

"What does we're a family here assume?" · "How does calling illness a battle frame the patient?" · "What does the marketplace of ideas leave out?" · "What does this metaphor hide?"

untangle a mixed or dead metaphor

questions people ask:

"Confusing metaphors — what went wrong here?" · "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it." · "Is the ball is in your court still a metaphor?" · "Is this a dead metaphor?"

change or create a figure

questions people ask:

"Give me a metaphor for feeling trapped." · "Metaphor about family." · "Rewrite her mind is a steel trap as a simile." · "What changes if grief is a journey instead of a battle?"

write with figurative language

questions people ask:

"Use figurative in a sentence." · "How to use figurative language." · "Extend this metaphor across a paragraph." · "Make this description less literal."

whether the language is literal or figurative

• whether the wording is literal or figurative;

the figure of speech in use

• the figure or figures of speech in use;
• the device names, including sound and substitution devices;

the meaning of the expression

• the plain meaning of the expression;
• the literal image underneath the expression;

what is being compared

• what is being compared to what;
• which qualities carry across the comparison;
• which qualities do not carry across;
• where a comparison stops holding;

the framing the image performs

• the assumptions introduced by the figure;
• how the figure frames or changes the subject;
• what the figure brings forward and what it pushes out of view;
• the conceptual metaphor a set of expressions draws on;

alternative readings

• alternative readings where context does not support one certain interpretation;

generated figurative language

• a metaphor, simile or other figurative expression written for a supplied idea;
• alternative images that create different effects;

rewritten figurative language

• a rewritten comparison using a replacement image, with the change in qualities, assumptions and emphasis stated.

Figurative language appears in everyday speech, literature, poetry, advertising, journalism, speeches, professional writing and other contexts where words communicate more than their literal meaning.

how figurative language creates meaning

Calling an argument a house, a relationship a journey or time a resource transfers selected features of one subject onto another. The features a comparison asks the reader to carry across matter as much as the meaning of the image.

how context changes figurative meaning

The same image carries different meanings in different contexts. Fire can represent destruction, desire, purification, anger, life or transformation, and the surrounding language determines which possibilities are active.

what separates figures that look alike

Several distinctions rest on a single hinge. Simile marks the comparison and metaphor asserts it. Synecdoche uses a part for a whole while metonymy uses something merely associated. Personification lends human qualities to a thing while anthropomorphism treats the thing as a person. Sarcasm is verbal irony aimed at someone. Knowing which hinge is in play settles most classification questions.

figurative language in everyday speech

Figurative structure operates in ordinary language, not only in literature. Defending a position, wasting time, carrying emotional baggage and attacking an argument are figurative expressions that organize everyday reasoning.

why a comparison stops working

Every comparison carries some features across and leaves others behind, which means every comparison has a point past which it misleads. The brain is a computer until memory turns out not to be storage. Knowing where the mapping ends is part of knowing what it claims.

how symbols acquire meaning

Symbols acquire meaning through use. An object becomes symbolic because a culture, text, community or speaker repeatedly connects the object with something beyond itself, and that history carries more weight than a universal list assigning one fixed meaning to every colour, animal or object.

literal and figurative meaning together

Literal and figurative readings can remain active together. A line can describe an actual storm while using the storm to carry fear, conflict or change.

how a figure wears out

Repetition removes the image. A comparison used often enough stops being read as a comparison, which is how the leg of a table and the ball being in your court became plain description. What remains is the meaning without the picture, and mixing two of those produces an image nobody intended.

how to interpret figurative language without overreading it

A plausible association is not automatically the intended one. Repetition, contrast, surrounding imagery, tone and what changes around an image supply the evidence that distinguishes an interpretation from a free association.

types of figurative language

An expression can fit more than one category. Figurative language operates through several mechanisms:

• comparison: metaphor, simile, analogy, extended metaphor and mixed metaphor;
• substitution: metonymy and synecdoche;
• scale: hyperbole, understatement and litotes;
• inversion: irony, sarcasm, verbal irony and situational irony;
• attribution: personification and anthropomorphism;
• contradiction: oxymoron and paradox;
• sound: onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance;
• symbolic and conventional language: symbols, conventional figures and dead metaphors.