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Home  »  A Dictionary of Similes  »  Charles Dickens

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

Charles Dickens

Aslant, like the angels in Jacob’s dream.

Beautiful as noon-day.

Black as thunder.

Blended like the colors in the rainbow.

Blind as a brickbat.

Bob up like the hammers in a pianoforte.

Brazen as alabaster.

Huge bulk like a sea monster among the minnows of the Thames.

Calm as Clapham.

Second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

Certain to make his way there as a gimlet is to go through soft deal.

Cheerful as the day was long.

Chuckles, like the opening of a bottle of some effervescent beverage.

Cleared like a doubtful morning when it gives place to a bright noon.

Clung to the soil like Caliban.

Coarse in grain as the bark of an oak.

Collapse like the cheeks of a starved man.

Comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up by mistake in the grain department of a brewery.

Convivial as a live trout in a lime-basket.

Crisp as new bank notes.

Cross as two sticks.

Curled like a pastoral crook.

Curled up like hot paper.

Ever darker and darker, like the shadow of advancing death.

Darting skyward like a rocket.

Dead as Pharaoh.

She was a little dilapidated, like a house, with having been so long to let.

Disappeared, like the shadow thrown by a passing cloud.

Distress is forever going about like soot in the air.

Drag like lead.

Dry as a chip.

Dry as a lime-basket.

Dry as the desert.

Dull as laudanum.

Eccentric as comets.

So evanescent that it was like a shape made in water.

Excite him, as the donkeys on the green did Betsy Trotwood.

Flat as a juryman.

Fluttered like a bird with broken wings.

Fresh as a lark.

Fresh as butter.

Gay as a butterfly.

Gently as an angel’s hand.

Gilded as a glittering toy.

Glistened like the path of diamonds in the sun.

Gloomy as a hobgoblin.

Grave as a judge.

Grave as an organ.

Growled within himself like a little double-bass.

Makes such head as a fire does in a raging wind.

Heavy as the hand of death.

Holds as tight as a horse-leech.

Howl like a wolf.

An idea, like a ghost (according to the common notion of ghosts), must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

Immovable as a pump or a lamp-post.

Impossible as it would be for a full balloon not to go up.

Interlocked like a couple of preposterous gladiators.

Jerked his head like a bird.

Lingering about like a bailiff.

Mild as any lamb that ever pastured in the fields.

Nodded like a plume.

Sharp nose like a sharp autumn evening, inclined to be frosty towards the end.

Oppressed like foul air.

Pale as a candle.

Pale as a muffin.

Time passed away as a tale which is told.

Passed out as quickly as a sunbeam.

As plain to everybody as the sun.

Plump as a peach.

Quarrelsome, like a sparrow.

Quiet as a sepulchre.

Red as beetroot.

Regular as military drums.

Rough as a Sea Porkypine.

In rows, like figures in a sum.

Saunters … like an idle river very leasurely strolling down a flat country to the sea.

Set, as a piece of sculpture.

Shine like cherub’s cheeks.

Sifted fine as flour.

Silent as a flame that fails.

Sleek as Mr. Pecksniff.

Slight … as a dew-drop.

Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal at rustic sports with his tail soaped.

It came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no wind.

Smart as a sixpence.

Smiles like clockwork.

Smooth as a new laid egg.

Walked as softly as the ghost in Hamlet.

Sparkling all over, like a harlequin.

Split like a fired shell.

Spurned like any reptile.

Stiff like a state coachman.

Sitting stiffly by, like a functionary presiding over an interview, previous to an execution.

Straight as any plummet line.

Straight as a crow flies.

Sure as sun-up.

Tender as a lamb.

Thick as scarecrows in England.

Tight as a gooseberry.

Unintelligible as any dream.

Vanished away, like spectres.

Vanish like a breath.

Vanished like a discontented fairy.

Vaprous as a witch’s cauldron.

Weak as a reed.

Weak as flesh.

White as ashes.

Withered and pale as an old pauper.

Within another, like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving.