figurative
IPA: fˈɪgjɝʌtɪv
adjective
- Of use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures; as when saying that someone who eats more than they should is a pig or like a pig.
- Metaphorically so called.
- With many figures of speech.
- Emblematic, symbolic; representative, exemplative
- (art) Representing forms recognisable in life and clearly derived from real object sources, in contrast to abstract art.
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Examples of "figurative" in Sentences
- Namely, loan can’t be used in figurative contexts:
- It took me awhile to grasp that you meant slaughtered English in figurative terms.
- Needless to say, in giving the term a figurative meaning as well, locals take up the challenge admirably.
- But these things are here foretold, as usual, in figurative expressions, which we are not to look for the literal accomplishment of, and yet they might be fulfilled nearer the letter than we know of.
- The two main figurative mosaics upon the ambo depict Jonah and the whale, with the one side showing his being swallowed by the whale, and the other, his being released -- Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him [Jesus], saying: Master, we would see a sign from thee.
- In segregating out figuration, what I'm suggesting is that the operation at play in figurative language -- metaphor and metonym -- needs to be distinguished from both literal reference-making (mimesis) and abstract pattern-making (autotelesis), understood as discretely purposed.
- You mean the government that enslaved and brutalized blacks, kept women in figurative shackles, founded more than one unnecessary war on falsehoods, detained innocents without charge (sometimes torturing them to the point of death) for years, loosed trigger-happy mercenaries on innocent civilians ...?
- The decays and infirmities of old age are here elegantly described in figurative expressions, which have some difficulty in them to us now, who are not acquainted with the common phrases and metaphors used in Solomon's age and language; but the general scope is plain -- to show how uncomfortable, generally, the days of old age are.
- If we inquire for those texts of Scripture which represent the earth as the immovable center of the universe, we shall be referred to the figurative language of the Psalms, the book of Job, and other poetical parts of Scripture, which speak of the "foundations of the earth," "the earth being established," "abiding for ever," and the like, when the slightest attention to the language would show _that it is intended to be figurative_.
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