Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
White
White as a moonlit sail.
—William Alexander
White as the necks of swans.
—James Lane Allen
White as a bean.
—Anonymous
White as lime.
—Anonymous
White as a baby’s arm.
—Anonymous
White as a diamond.
—Anonymous
White as a doll.
—Anonymous
White as a dove.
—Anonymous
White as a fish.
—Anonymous
White as a flock of sheep.
—Anonymous
White as a ghost.
—Anonymous
White as a live terrier.
—Anonymous
White as a pillow.
—Anonymous
White as arsenic.
—Anonymous
White as a sheet.
—Anonymous
White as a shroud.
—Anonymous
White as a spirit.
—Anonymous
White as a statue.
—Anonymous
White as a sycamore.
—Anonymous
White as a whale’s tooth.
—Anonymous
White as chastity.
—Anonymous
White as his neck-cloth.
—Anonymous
White as salt.
—Anonymous
White as silver.
—Anonymous
White as sin forgiven.
—Anonymous
White as sunbeams.
—Anonymous
White as the breakers’ foam.
—Anonymous
White as the breast of a gull.
—Anonymous
White as the blossoms of the almond tree.
—Anonymous
White as the foam that danced on the billow’s height.
—Anonymous
White as the gown of a bride.
—Anonymous
White as the hand of Moses.
—Anonymous
White as the snowy white rose that in the moonlight sighs.
—Anonymous
White as white satin.
—Anonymous
White like the inside of a shoulder of mutton.
—Anonymous
White as the stem of a young palm.
—Arabian
White as paper of Syria.
—Arabian
White as camphor.
—Arabian Nights
Brow white as day.
—Arabian Nights
White as morning.
—Arabian Nights
White as the full moon when it mooneth on its fourteenth night.
—Arabian Nights
White like egg of the pigeon hen.
—Arabian Nights
White as bismuth.
—William Archer
White as frost on field.
—William E. Aytoun
A maid as white as ivory bone.
—English Ballad
White as snow-drops.
—Serbian Ballad
Purely white as the mountain snow.
—Welsh Ballad
White as porcelain.
—Honoré de Balzac
White as soap.
—Richard Harris Barham
White as the hawthorn’s crown.
—Mary Barry
White as a thread by hands of angels spun.
—Francis Beaumont
Whiter than mountain snow hath ever been.
—Francis Beaumont
White as swanne.
—Sir Harry Beaumont
Soul as white as heaven.
—Beaumont and Fletcher
White as innocence herself.
—Beaumont and Fletcher
White as the foaming sea.
—Park Benjamin
White as snow.
—Bion
White as an angel.
—William Blake
White as foam-drift in the moony shimmer of starlit, wave-pavilioned dells.
—Mathilde Blind
White as the sun.
—Emily Brontë
White as candles against the altar’s gold.
—Katherine H. Brown
White as foam thrown upon rocks from the old-spent wave.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
White as gulls.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
White as moonshine.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
White as wax.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
White like a cloud at fall of snow.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
White like a spirit’s hand.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
White with coming buds, like the bright side of a sorrow.
—Robert Browning
White as a curd.
—Robert Browning
White as the winding-sheet.
—Robert Buchanan
White as death.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
White, as if she lived on blanched almonds.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
White as a clout.
—John Bunyan
As white’s a daisy.
—Robert Burns
White as the thoughts of an angel.
—Mary Frances Butts
White as a white sail on a dusky sea.
—Lord Byron
White as fleece.
—Alice Cary
White as a cloth.
—Bliss Carman
White as the chaulkie clyffes of Brittaines isle.
—Thomas Chatterton
Whyte hys rade [neck] as the sommer snowe.
—Thomas Chatterton
Whit as chalk.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
Whyte as floure.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
Whit as is a lylie flour.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
Whyte as lylye or rose in rys [twig].
—Geoffrey Chaucer
White as snowe falle newe.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
White of hewe,
As snowe on braunche snawed newe.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
White was his berd as is the dayesie.
—Geoffrey Chaucer
Whit was as the flour delys (Flower-de-luce).
—Geoffrey Chaucer
White as a flock of egrets.
—Chinese
Gleaming white, like peach and plum blossoms.
—Chinese
Dressed in white—all white, like a bride or a bandaged thumb.
—Irvin S. Cobb
White as new-plucked cotton.
—Frederick S. Cozzens
White as an infant’s spirit.
—Aubrey De Vere
White as ashes.
—Charles Dickens
Hands … white, as if the blood began to chill there.
—Alexandre Dumas, père
As white as teeth of twenty-five years old.
—Alexandre Dumas, père
A sail as white as blossom upon spray.
—William Dunbar
The beautiful young lady, all in white, like a lily in the night, or the moon sweeping over a cloudless sky.
—Joseph von Eichendorff
White as the canna upon the moor.
—Ancient Erse
White as snow-wreath in the eye of spring.
—Frederick William Faber
White as molten glass.
—Phineas Fletcher
Breasts
As white as hedgeside May.
—Norman Gale
White and awful as a shroud-enfolded ghost.
—Richard Garnett
His beard was whiter than the feathers which veil the breast of the penguin.
—Oliver Goldsmith
Pure and white,
As some shy spirit in a haunted place.
—Paul Hamilton Hayne
White as the lips of passion.
—Paul Hamilton Hayne
As white as bear’s teeth.
—Thomas Heywood
As white as the pale ashes of a wasted coal.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
White as sea-bleached shells.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
White as the sea-gull.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
White as Irish linen.
—Thomas Hood
White as parading breeches.
—Thomas Hood
White as a chicken.
—Victor Hugo
White as the gowan [daisy].
—John Imlah
White,
Like ships in heaven full-sailed.
—Jean Ingelow
White as the snowy rose of Guelderland.
—Jean Ingelow
White as flocks new-shorn.
—John Keats
Whiter than a star.
—John Keats
White as the moon.
—Omar Khayyám
White as the wonder undefiled of Eve just wakened in Paradise.
—Harriet McEwen Kimball
White as an embodied hush.
—Harriet McEwen Kimball
Thin-flanked woman, as white and as stale as a bone.
—Rudyard Kipling
White as an angel clad in light.
—James Sheridan Knowles
White, like the apparition of a dead rainbow.
—Charles Lamb
White as maiden purity.
—Letitia Elizabeth Landon
White,
Like a gravestone seen in the pale moonlight.
—Letitia Elizabeth Landon
White as Ketak’s snow flower.
—Lays of Ancient India
White as a nun.
—Richard Le Gallienne
White as ivory.
—Richard Le Gallienne
White as the face of the dead.
—Camille Lemonnier
Whiter than the downy spray.
—John Leyden
White as a live terror.
—George Cabot Lodge
White as a cloud that floats and fades in the air.
—Henry W. Longfellow
White as a schoolboy’s paper kite.
—Henry W. Longfellow
White as seas’ fog.
—Henry W. Longfellow
White as the gleam of a receding sail.
—Henry W. Longfellow
White as a dove.
—Samuel Lover
White as thistle-down.
—James Russell Lowell
White as alabaster.
—John Lyly
White as driven snow.
—John Lyly
White as untrod snow.
—Lewis Machin
White as the foam of streams.
—James Macpherson
White as the whitest foam of the sea
That tosses its waves under fervent skies,
Or a feather dropped from an angel’s wing
As it leant o’er the walls of Paradise.
—A. W. Marshall
White and pure as any bridal veil.
—Guy de Maupassant
Sightless white, like eyes of lifeless stone.
—William J. Mickle
White as the bloom o’ the pear.
—William Miller
White as a sinner’s shroud.
—Dinah Maria Mulock
White as virgin’s pall.
—Dinah Maria Mulock
Lilly-white as a lady’s marrying smock.
—Thomas Nash
Venerable beard
White, hoary like the foam o’ the sea.
—Enrico Nencioni
White
Like girls for a first communion dight.
—Roden Noel
White … like angels in their ascension clothes, waiting for those who prayed below.
—Fitz-James O’Brien
White as a winter home.
—John Payne
White as is the new blown bell
Of that frail flower that loves the wind.
—John Payne
As white … as clay.
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed
White as the waxen petal of the flowers.
—Helen. C. Prince
White like a young flock,
Coeval, newly shorn, from the clear brook recent, and branching on the sunny rock.
—Matthew Prior
White as swans.
—François Rabelais
White as fear.
—Opie Read
White as the living cheek opposed.
—Charles Reade
White as grit.
—James Whitcomb Riley
White as the cream-crested wave.
—James Whitcomb Riley
White as the gleam of her beckoning hand.
—James Whitcomb Riley
White a hand as lilies in the sunlight.
—Christina Georgina Rossetti
White as the moon lies in the lap of night.
—Christina Georgina Rossetti
White like flame.
—Christina Georgina Rossetti
Whiter than sawn ivory.
—John Ruskin
Wings as white as a dream of snow in love and light.
—A. J. Ryan
White as Dinlay’s spotless snoe.
—Sir Walter Scott
White as a lily.
—William Shakespeare
Soft as dove’s down and as white.
—William Shakespeare
White his shroud as the mountain snow.
—William Shakespeare
Teeth as white as whale’s bone.
—William Shakespeare
Perfect white
Show’d like an April daisy on the grass.
—William Shakespeare
White as the foam o’ the sea
That is driven o’er billows of azure agleam with sun-yellow.
—William Sharp
White as isinglass.
—George Bernard Shaw
Whitens like steel in a furnace.
—George Bernard Shaw
White with the whiteness of what is dead,
Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
White as a swan’s stray feather.
—Harry B. Smith
White … like the flying cloud at noon.
—Robert Southey
White as the swan’s breast.
—Robert Southey
White, withouten spot or pride, that seemed like silke and silver woven neare.
—Edmund Spenser
White … like a dazie in a field of grass.
—Sir John Suckling
White as a custard.
—Jonathan Swift
White as dead stark-stricken dove.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
White as faith’s and age’s hue.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
White as moonlight snows.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
White as the live heart of light.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
White as the sparkle of snow-flowers in the sun.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
White as the unfruitful thorn-flower.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
White as mountain cotton-grass.
—Irish Epic Tales
White as any flower.
—Alfred Tennyson
White as privet.
—Alfred Tennyson
White as utter truth.
—Alfred Tennyson
White as the light.
—New Testament
It was like coriander seed, white.
—Old Testament
Whiter than milk.
—Old Testament
White as a ceiling.
—William Makepeace Thackeray
I turned as white as cold boil’d veal.
—William Makepeace Thackeray
White, and ghastly, like an army of tombstones by moonlight.
—William Makepeace Thackeray
Like the mists of spring, all silvery white.
—The Hagoromo
More white than curds.
—Theocritus
Slight and white as a peeled wand.
—Vance Thompson
White as sculptured stone.
—Francis C. F. Tiernan
White as the down of an angel’s wings.
—John T. Trowbridge
White, like the Shah of Persia’s diamond plume.
—Mark Twain
White as Carrara marble.
—Theodore Watts-Dunton
White as evening clouds.
—Charles J. Wells
White as the wings of prayer.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Stainless white,
Like ivory bathed in still moonlight.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Whiter than a moony pearl.
—Oscar Wilde
White as a charnel bone.
—N. P. Willis
White as flashing icicle.
—N. P. Willis