Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Anonymous
Absurd as an excuse.Absurd as to ask a man if he’ll have salt on his ice cream.Absurd as to ask if the flowers love the dew.Absurd as to expect a beauty to search for her likeness in the back of a looking-glass.Abundant as air and water.A troupe of acrobats is like a combination to a safe: both have tumblers.Active as a boy climbing a crab-apple tree for a cargo of cramp-generators.Active as a fire department during a conflagration.Active as a pea in a bladder.Active as a pea on a griddle.Active as quicksilver.An actor is like a cigar; the more you puff him the smaller he gets.Adhere like burrs.Adhesive as a postage stamp.Adhesive as fly-paper.Where like a fire to heather set, Bauld Thomas did advance.Advancing, as the chorus to the footlights.Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.Advice after mischief is like medicine after death.Affairs, like a salt fish, ought to be a good while a-soaking.Aghast, like beaten hounds that dare not whine.Agile as a cat.Agree like finger and thumb.Agree like the hare and the hound.Alert as a chamois.Alike as two peas.Alone, like a leper.Amorous as a pair of love-birds.Amorous as a parrakeet.Like fragile ice, anger passes away in time.Answer like a book.Answer like a parrot.Answered like a sail taking a breeze.Far apart as the earth and the arch above.Far apart as the poles.Aphorism, like vinegar, should be used with discretion.Arching, like a fish-hook.Arched, like a horn.Arched like a mule’s back in a hail storm.Ardent as a boy.Artificial as clockwork.Austere as a tree full of owls.Awful as the negligence of woe.Awkward as a blind dog in a meat shop.Awkward as a bull in a China shop.Awkward as a cow on ice.Awkward as a pig in a parlor.Bad as the itch.Bald as a billiard ball.Bald as an egg.Barbarous as a man who uses his finger for a paper knife.Bare as a Scotchman’s knee.Bare as a stone.Barren as a New Hampshire granite hill.Barren as a South African veldt.Baseless as the fabric of a vision.Bashful as a school-girl.Bawl like an auctioneer.Bawling like sailors in a tavern.Beamed like the splendor of an eastern sky.Like the walnut tree,
The more he is beaten, the better he’ll be.Beautiful as a chemical blonde.Beautiful as Adonis.Beautiful as a sunset.Beautiful as the dawn.Beautiful as the face of a young Greek god.Beautiful as the seraph’s dream.Beautiful as Zenobia.Beauty without modesty is like a flower broken from its stem.Beg like a dog at a fair.Bellows like the vagrant winds.Bends like a willow in the wind.Benefits, like flowers, please most when they are fresh.Bent like a drooping rose.Bent like a whip.Big as an elephant.Big as a house.Big as a whale.Big as life and twice as natural.Binding as a wedding ring.Bitter as the suffering of life.Bitter as gall.Black as Alaskan sealskin.Black as a stack of black cats.Black as a thundercloud.Black as a tinker.Black as blindness.Black as Egypt’s night.Black as a sloe.Black as snow in London.Black as the Duke of Hell’s black riding boots.Black as the inside of a man who drank a bottle of ink.Black as the mantle that shrouds the blind.Black as Uncle Tom.Blank as an empty bottle.Blaze like the eyes of a maniac.Blazed up like a beacon.Bleak as the ocean vast.Bleat like a lamb.Blind as a bank director.Blind as a bat.Blind as a white cat with a blue eye.Blind as Cupid.Blinking like a toad in a sand heap.Blithe as a bird on a cherry bough.Blithe as a grig.Danced as blithely and briskly as a lost red maple leaf fluttering madly in a keen October breeze.Bloated like a squeezed cat.Bloomed like a bridal-chamber.Blooming as a peach.Blooming with promise like an apple in the month of May.Blue as a whale.Blue as blue-bell bed.Blue as cobalt.Blue as forget-me-nots.Blue as indigo.Blue as melancholy.Blue as October skies.Blue as the soft azure surface of the southern sea.Blue as your nose on a cold day.Blunt as a hammer.Blunt as a meat-ax.Blush like an opal.Bobbing up and down like a duck in a mud puddle.Bold as a blind man.Bold as Beauchamp.Bold as Joan of Arc.Boldly … like giants conquering in a noble cause.Bony as an ossified shad.Bow like a field of wheat before the rising wind.Bows like a reed in a tempest.Brave as a Barbary lion.Brave as Achilles.Brave as a mad bull.Brave as Launcelot.Brazen as an image.Breathing like the Spring.Breathe like toads under ground.Briefer than the twinkling of an eye.Bright as a blister.Bright as a dollar.Bright as a new penny.Bright as a pewter pot.Bright as at Creation’s day.Bright as fairies that in a sunbeam dance.Bright as Japanese bronze.Bright as new silver.Bright as saucepans.Bright as Sharon’s rose.Bright as sunshine on the sea.Bright as the captain’s cabin of a man-of-war.Bright was her soul as Dian’s crest.Brilliant as a dream.Brilliant as Indian summer.Brilliant as the colors of the rainbow.Brisk as a flea.Bristles all over like a porcupine.Brooding like a dove for its mate.Her brow … is like the young moon.Bubbled like a tea-kettle beginning to boil.Burn into your soul like a curse.Bushy as the fleece of the ram.Busy as a beaver.Busy as a beehive attacked by a bear.Busy as a boy killing snakes.Busy as a good wife at an oven.Busy as a hen with one chick.Busy as a humming bird with two tails.Busy as a one-armed paperhanger with the hives.Busy as a pigeon at a shooting match.Busy as squirrels in a wheel.Busy as a ticking clock.Buzzing like a fly.Callous as Comus to moral babble.Calm as a convent.Calm as a cradled child in Dreamland slumber.Calm as a June day.Calm as a midnight sea.Calm as a saint in Paradise.Calm as a soft summer eve.Calm as a virgin in her shroud.Calm as clam shells.Calm as the society column of a newspaper.He came down the road like hell beating tanbark.Careful as the chief eunuch is of the Grand Seignior’s favorite Sultana.Caressed him like a lapdog.Carries it as badly as a callow youth in wine.Casting, like a sower afield.Cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain.Caught, like a bit of paper between the blades of a pair of shears.Cautious as a fox.As cautious as a Scot.As certain as that a brook must have banks.As certain as that a squirrel will climb a tree.As certain as that your shadow will follow you.As certain as that the leaves will fall in autumn.Certain as gold.Certain as that a crooked tree will have a crooked shadow.Certain as that a person not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.Certain as that light and heat come and go with the sun.Certain as that no mill no meal.Certain as that plants and animals grow and die.Certain as that sticks burn away in the fire.Certain as the movements of heavenly bodies.Certain as the multiplication table.Certain as that the ocean is the meeting-place of all waters; the skies, the meeting-place of all torches; the tongue, of all tastes; the nose, of all smells; the mind, of all precepts.Certain as the rising of the morning sun.Certain as that the Tweed runs from east to west.No more chance than a hen has of hatching a codfish from a fried egg.Change as woman, wind and fortune.Change, like Proteus.Change, like women’s thoughts and winter weather.Changeable as the moons.Changeful as the ocean bar.Characterless as a china shepherdess.Chaste as marble.Chaste as Minerva.Chaste as the moon.Chattering like a flock of daws.Cheap as dirt.Cheap as dog’s meat.Cheeks as brown as oak leaves.Cheerful as the birds.Cheerful as a mute at a funeral.Cheery as a June day in Georgia.Cheery as a sunbeam.Chill as death.Chimerical as the existence of the Brobdingnags or the Yahoos.Chirping like a cricket.Chubby as a cherub.Clairvoyant as the X-Ray.Clean as a die.Clean as a Dutch oven.Clean as a new pin.Clean as a pebble.Clean as crystal.Clean as light.Cleaner than our sister the water.Clear as a cube of solid sunshine.Clear as a die.About as clear as a misty morning on the Thames.Clear as daylight.Traced as clearly as currents upon a marble chart.A voice as clear as forest bird.Clear as mountain stream.Clear as paint.Clear as the notes of a cavalry bugle. 