What are easy ways to identify figurative language?
Let’s start with the opposite of figurative language: literal language. To express something literally means true to the meaning of the words. In other words, the writer or speaker means precisely what he or she says. Figurative language, then, is when a writer means something other than the exact, literal meaning of her words. However, figurative lanugage isn’t the same thing as lying. The writer isn’t trying to deceive but rather to explain a something in a colorful, metaphorical way.
