figurative
Example Sentences
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"These people are not dead," Italian figurative painter Amedeo Modigliani once said of the Fayum portraits.
From Barron's ● Nov. 3, 2026
When I say it’s a trailer-park “Terminator,” I’m being both literal and figurative; the story mostly takes place in such a site in New Mexico and it’s pure cinematic trash.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
The figurative enemy, Hofstadter wrote, “is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman — sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
Dramatizations of the several lives studied put figurative flesh on the petrified bodies of the volcano victims, and those who escaped such a fate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Now lined with a row of small shops, the tradition continues, though in a figurative rather than literal sense.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
Vocabulary lists containing figurative
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Vocabulary of the Common Core
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TEKS ELAR Academic Vocabulary List (5th-7th grades)
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