Thomas Hood Similes. Frank J. Wilstach, comp. 1916. A Dictionary of Similes

Reference > Quotations > Frank J. Wilstach, comp. > A Dictionary of Similes

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Thomas Hood


Active as a griffin.	1
Bad as a blight.	2
Bellowed as a hunted ox.	3
Black as gunpowder.	4
Black as the fruit of the thorn.	5
Black as your hat.	6
Blackens like a thunder cloud.	7
His eye is blind as that of a potato.	8
Blubbered like a child that’s nursed.	9
Blue each visage grew, Just like a pullet’s gizzard.	10
Bowed, like a man sawing marble.	11
Brief as sparkles from the flint.	12
Brown as a bun.	13
Buoyant as the thistle-down.	14
Burnt like caustic.	15
Buzzed like the bees when they swarm.	16
Carol like a bird in spring.	17
Cheap as sunshine.	18
Chilly as a tomb.	19
Clanging like a gong.	20
Clings … like the weed in the face of the cliff.	21
Cold, just like a summer grate.	22
Cool as the pool that the breeze has skimmed.	23
Crowd, like flocking linnets.	24
Crumpled like a snowball in his fist.	25
Calls daily like a dun.	26
Dark as a cloud that journeys overhead.	27
Dark as the grave.	28
Dark as shadows be.	29
A sudden truth dawns on me, like a light through the remainder tatters of a dream.	30
Dead to sounds, as a ship out of soundings.	31
Dead as bricks.	32
Deaf as any tradesman’s dummy.	33
Deaf as a nail—that you cannot hammer a meaning into.	34
She was deaf as a nut—for nuts, no doubt, Are deaf to the grub that’s hollowing out.	35
Deaf as a stone—say one of the stones Demosthenes sucked to improve his tones; And surely deafness no further could reach Than to be in his mouth without hearing his speech.	36
Deaf as bricks.	37
Deaf as God and Magog.	38
Deaf as Pharaoh’s mother’s mother’s mummy.	39
Deaf as the still-born figures of Madame Tussaud, With their eyes of glass, and their hair of flax, That only stare whatever you “ax,” For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax.	40
Devoutly as the Dervish.	41
Dimmed and torn, like the remainder tatters of a dream.	42
Dingy, like a grubby lot Of sooty sweeps, or colliers.	43
Direct as a railroad.	44
Grew downward like old women and cow’s tail.	45
Drive her foes from their savage job As a mad black Bullock would scatter a mob.	46
Drowned like pigs when they attempt to swim.	47
Dull as a donkey.	48
With ecstacy … like fathers that behold their infants crawl.	49
Extinguish’d, like the vital spark in death.	50
Eyes … mild as a gazelle’s.	51
Fair is she as the dreams young poets weave.	52
Fair as the wave-bleached lily of the stream.	53
Flitted like a spark.	54
As fluent as a parrot is, And far more Polly-glottish.	55
Fond as hounds are of running after foxes.	56
Forsaken, as ships go to old Davy.	57
Frail as dishes.	58
Fret, Like a pupil of Walton and Cotton, Who remains by the brink of the water, agape, While the jack, trout, or barbel effects its escape Thro’ the gut or silk line being rotten.	59
Lingering gaze, like a peacock whose eyes are inclined to his tail.	60
Golden glow, Like Iris just bedabbled in her bow.	61
Green as the mantled pool.	62
Hands like rugged bark.	63
Heaved as in his breast the waves of life kept heaving to and fro.	64
Humble as a stone.	65
Humble as a worm.	66
Insipid things—like sandwiches of veal.	67
Jumps, like a sole from the pan.	68
Keen as a hawk.	69
Lapped her like a vapor.	70
He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, tormenting himself with prickles.	71
Linked each to each by labor, like a bee.	72
As lost, as any needle in a stack of hay.	73
Mild, Like the soft snoring of a child.	74
Mingle into one, Like blended streams that make one music as they run.	75
Murmured like the humming of a bee.	76
Pale as frosty snow-drops.	77
Pale, like cheeks that feel the chill of affright.	78
Pallid as a corpse.	79
Parch to the peppered palate like a pea.	80
Pious as a Pope.	81
Plain as the man with lantern.	82
Plain as whisper in the ear.	83
A pun is somewhat like a cherry: though there may be a slight outward indication of partition—of a duplicity of meaning—yet no gentleman need make two bites at it against his own pleasure.	84
Quiet as if shod with felt.	85
Return, like stars replenished at Joy’s golden urn.	86
Ripe as June.	87
Rising in the air like eagle on the wing.	88
Rose like dim fancies when a dream begins.	89
Rock’d like Yankee in his chair.	90
Rolled in money like pigs in mud.	91
Round as Norval’s shield.	92
Round as platter of delf.	93
A row, like a Quaker gone delirious.	94
Ruddy as if baked by heat of sun or glowing forge.	95
Running like a hunted deer.	96
Rushed like a torrid hurricane.	97
Rustling … like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell the sable storm.	98
Scold like shrewish wives at tavern door.	99
Serious … as one would whisper that a lion’s near.	100
Shaded over, like rainy clouds just ripe for showering tears.	101
Shook it like a terrier with a rat.	102
Shriek, Like a frayed bird in the gray owlet’s beak.	103
Silent as a mummy.	104
Silent as a stone.	105
Sits careless of wave’s ebb and flow, Like a love beacon on a desert coast, Showing where all her hope was wrecked and lost.	106
Sleek as silk.	107
Time Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face Of a dark dial in a sunless place.	108
Slips like water through a sieve.	109
Slow, as the strokes of a pump.	110
A groaning intermitting sound like Gog and Magog snoring.	111
Soft as a flute.	112
Soft as flowers.	113
Sounds upon the air most soothing soft, Like humming bees busy about the brooms.	114
Solid as glass.	115
Sparkle like fairy boon.	116
Speechless as a mummy.	117
Past and spent, Like stars extinguished in the firmament.	118
Spit like hump-back’d cats.	119
Spotted, as thickly as the leopard’s dappled skin.	120
Squatting things like toads.	121
Staring like Pythoness possessed.	122
Starts like a ghost.	123
Start like lightning greased.	124
Steaming like a brewer’s vat.	125
Stirred as tempest stirs the forest branches.	126
Stirred, like insects settled on a dancing leaf.	127
Subdued like Argus by the might of sound.	128
Subdued and grave, Like schoolboys when the master’s in a passion.	129
Sudden as a snap.	130
Sure as Dover stands at Dover.	131
Swallowed her steps like a pursuing grave.	132
Sweeping like rivers that seek the main.	133
Swiftly as the dolphins glide.	134
Go on as swimmingly as old Noah’s Ark.	135
Like rudder to the ripple veering, When nobody on board is steering.	136
Tapping like woodpeckers.	137
Thick as London fog.	138
Thrash invaders rash, like barley with a flail.	139
Deep bells toll, Like a last knell over the dead world’s soul.	140
Torn, Like the remainder tatters of a dream.	141
Tossed it just like a haymaker at work.	142
Tremble like the stars in the sky.	143
Tremulous the voice … like any one’s when jesting with a subject not a joke.	144
True as the watchman to his beat.	145
Twisted like an S.	146
Like cold marble thou art all unfeeling.	147
Unwatched, unwept, as commonly a pauper sleeps.	148
Unwelcome and unasked, like Banquo’s Ghost, in walked the long-lost Spouse.	149
Vanished … like the shadow of a cloud.	150
Vivid as from painted glass.	151
Warble like the birds in June.	152
Warm as young blood.	153
Warm as when Aurora rushes Freshly from the god’s embrace, With all her shame upon her face.	154
White as Irish linen.	155
White as parading breeches.	156
Winks like the stars.	157
Writhing o’er its task, As heart-sick jesters weep behind the mask.	158
Yearning, like the first fierce impulse into crime.	159
Yellow as the amber.	160

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.

Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry