George Meredith 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.

George Meredith


Amiable as the surface of parchment.	1
As anxious as a maid To show a decent dress.	2
Bare as hop-stakes in November’s mists.	3
Bellow like a rascal trooper strung up for the cat.	4
Blissful as a leap to daylight out of a nightmare.	5
Blushing like the dogwood crimson in October.	6
Calm as a statue of Memnon in prostrate Egypt.	7
Cheering as a suburban London Sunday’s promenade.	8
Chill as aconite.	9
Chill as a dull face frowning on a song.	10
Circled … like flight of doves.	11
Clamouring like a brazen bell.	12
Clean as a red-hot poker.	13
Clean as the bright from the black.	14
Clear as a race course.	15
Clear as widowed sky.	16
Cold as a fish.	17
Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent.	18
Constant in intercommunication as are the sun and earth.	19
He told me that he thought one’s country like one’s wife: you were born in the first, and married to the second, and had to learn all about them afterwards,—ay, and make the best of them.	20
Cracked as a cocoa-nut bowled by a monkey.	21
Craved the trumpets eager note, As the bridled earth the spring.	22
A cry as wild as any coming of madness.	23
Dead as last year’s clothes in a fashionable fine lady’s wardrobe.	24
Delicately, like the tap of a fingernail on a vase.	25
Different as the two hemispheres in the time of Columbus.	26
Dim as the shades in the angry shower.	27
Direct as the arrow of logic.	28
Distant as the horizon sail.	29
Drives like rain to the roots.	30
Drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast, that dips them in the salt.	31
Drooping like crystals in the gulf of time.	32
Dull as a tract.	33
Dumb as pillar-posts.	34
Dwarfed … like starved plants under Greenland skies.	35
Eager as a cry for life.	36
Eager for it as a hound.	37
In earnest as a mouse in a trap.	38
Enthusiasm, like a bottle rid of the cork.	39
Evident as light in dark.	40
Faithful as the hands of a clock to the springs.	41
Fast as windy flames devour.	42
Firm as a pillar.	43
Hands firm as driven stakes.	44
Fits like a kid glove.	45
Flung up like a fortress lifted by powder.	46
Floundered, like a silly creature chasing a marsh-lamp.	47
Flown Like a smoke melted thinner than air, That the vacancy doth disown.	48
Fragrant as the frosted blossom of a May night.	49
Fresh as the orchard apple.	50
Seen no more, Gone, like the wind that raised the wave, The spent wave on the shore.	51
Gossipin’ about like a cracked bell-clapper.	52
Gossip must often have been likened to the winged insects bearing pollen to the flowers; it fertilizes many a vacuous reverie.	53
Grave as an eye dwelling on blood.	54
Green as jealousy.	55
Hang like a tail.	56
Heaving … like the sea in the background of a marine piece at the theatre.	57
Hoary as the glacier’s head Faced to the moon.	58
Holds him fast As a night-flag round the mast.	59
Her arms the master hold, As on wounds the scarf winds tight.	60
Horrible as viper-bitten bodies.	61
Ignorant as a raw kitchen wench.	62
Illuminated him as the burning taper lights up consecrated plate.	63
Inferences are like shadows on the wall—they are thrown from an object, and are monstrous distortions of it.	64
Knowing it as the moon her traditional influence upon the tides.	65
Light as the flying seed-ball.	66
Light as a bubble that flies from the tub, Whisked by the laundry-wife out of her suds.	67
Loud as cavalry to the charge.	68
Manageable as chess-pieces.	69
Meek as a dove.	70
Meek as gruel.	71
Mild as an evening heaven around Hesper bright.	72
Misty as a shape in a dream.	73
Natural as dunghill steam.	74
Neat as a postman’s knock.	75
Noisy as at a fair.	76
Obedient as a puppet.	77
Open as a plate.	78
Open-mouthed as a young child Wondering with a mind at fault.	79
Painful orderliness, like a city procession under the conduct of the police.	80
Pale as the sister of death.	81
Patiently as an old worn horse.	82
Plain … as a rudimentary sum in arithmetic.	83
Plump as a melon under a glass.	84
Pounced like a falcon.	85
Puffed like a swimmer in the breakers.	86
Pushed, like a fish to its native sea.	87
Quick as barrels popping at a bird.	88
Quick as torrents run.	89
Quick as wings.	90
Rapidly as drummer-sticks.	91
Red as murder.	92
Red as the British Army.	93
Relentless as an invalid.	94
Remote and minute as the chief scene of our infancy.	95
More repelling than an abyss.	96
Resembles, as bottles bottles.	97
Rosy as a victorious candidate.	98
Run like fire in summer furze.	99
Runs like the prey of the forest.	100
Rushed out upon the wayfarers like ambushed bandits.	101
Sacred as an unvoiced prayer.	102
Sad as the last line of a brave romance.	103
Scant as winter underwood.	104
Scatter … as if they had been balloons in a wind.	105
Scattered … like loose spray before the wind.	106
Secure as the firmament.	107
Serviceable as his inkstand.	108
Sharp as a sickle is the edge of shade and shine.	109
Sharp as the enchanter’s sword.	110
Shattered like stormy spray.	111
Shifty as a huckster’s opening deal For bargain under smoothest market face.	112
Shrank as at a prick of steel.	113
Shrank—like parchment at the touch of flame.	114
Shuddered as at a swift cleaving of cold steel.	115
Shy as the squirrel.	116
Shyer than the forest doe Twinkling slim through branches green.	117
Sick as a Dover packet-boat.	118
Silent as the evening sky.	119
Silly as an owlish roysterer’s glazed stare at the young aurora.	120
Snigger, like a yokel’s smile.	121
Solemn as a parson’s clerk.	122
Sounded like a felon’s heart in skeleton ribs.	123
Splendid as a general’s plume at the gallop.	124
Stood like a sentinel under inspection.	125
Stared, as one who would command Sight of what has filled his ear.	126
Stark, Like the sea-rejected thing Sea-sucked white.	127
Stately as a palm-tree standing before the moon.	128
Stiff as oak-leaves after frost.	129
Stiff as logwood.	130
Fall still as oak-leaves after frost.	131
Stop progress, like a block in the pit entrance to a theater.	132
Stout as bergs of Arctic ice.	133
Fly straight as the emissary eagle back to Jove.	134
Straight as the flight of the dove.	135
Straight,—like a webfoot to water.	136
Streaming like a flag of battle.	137
Streamed like curtain-rents Fluttered by a wind.	138
Supple as the Scythian’s bow.	139
Sure as the date on a bill.	140
Surely as musical ears are pained by a discord.	141
Surely as the heavens are mirrored in the quiet seas.	142
Sweet as Eden.	143
Sweet as victory half-revealed.	144
Swift as a blush in the cheeks of seventeen.	145
Tender, like a mother’s dream of her child.	146
Thick as feathers.	147
Thin as a weasel.	148
Thin as mist.	149
Thin as the shell of a sound.	150
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse.	151
Tight like teeth.	152
Tossing like field-flowers in Spring.	153
Tumbling about in her head like a world in disruption.	154
Uncaressable as puppets.	155
Uncorrected as outstretched swine.	156
Unremonstrant as a fallen tree.	157
Vain … as to attempt to erase what Time has written with the Judgment Blood.	158
Vanish like a view caught out of darkness by lightning.	159
Venice is like a melancholy face of a former beauty who has ceased to rouge, or wipe away traces of her old arts.	160
Visible like evanescent grave-lights.	161
A wail, as of a babe new-born.	162
Wandering, like a leaf off the tree.	163
Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun.	164
Yellow as jaundice.	165
Yielded, like bruised limb to leech.	166
Young as old Homer’s song is young.	167

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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