“For fun, the next time someone corrects you and says “That’s a simile, not a metaphor,” you can respond by letting them know that a simile is a type of metaphor, just like sarcasm is a type of irony. Resist the urge to be sarcastic in your delivery.”

1. You define “Metaphor” as a “figure of speech,” which it is. You explain its purpose as being draw a comparison between two very different things. Also accurate.

2. But you stray from your own line of logic when you define a “simile.” Note that in your own definition of simile you state that it compares two different things, just as a metaphor does. Also note that your definition of metaphor explains that its function–to compare two dissimilar things–makes it a figure of speech. However, the flaw in your explanation occurs when you disallowed a simile to be properly identified also according to its function–to compare two dissimilar things–which makes it also a figure of speech.

Where you are in error is your understanding of the broader term beyond the words “simile” and “metaphor.” It is true that “irony” is a broader term than “sarcasm,” which is a specific form of irony. However, a simile and metaphor are both figures of speech that differ in the specific form they take syntactically when they express a figure of speech.

So a person would be incorrect in saying, “All similes are metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes.” This is simply not true because a metaphor is not a broader term that contains the simile form. The correct way to form this sentence is as follows: “All similes are figures of speech, but not all figures of speech are similes.”

Thank you.

An analogy is using an example to explain something else by showing how the two situations are similar. Not a full blown story like allegory, but more elaborate than a metaphor, in which a non-literal meaning is expressed in a single word or short phrase.