Similes from Top AP English Exam Novels

In preparation for the AP English Literature and Composition exam, learn the vocabulary from these similes -- taken from popular AP novels. A simile is a figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared, using "like" or "as."
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. whimper
    cry weakly or softly
    "I felt a slight movement against my hand, like a child's breast when it whimpers at the end of a spell of crying"- Invisible Man , Ralph Ellison
  2. doom
    an unpleasant or disastrous destiny
    "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches"
    - Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
  3. Almighty
    terms referring to the Judeo-Christian God
    "The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of the Almighty God" - Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
  4. diabolical
    showing cunning or ingenuity or wickedness
    "As I stood idle by Mr. Jagger's fire, it's rising and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; -Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
    "Bo-Peep" in this sentence refers to a game like "peek-a-boo"
  5. snatch
    grasp hastily or eagerly
    " Oh he was heavy, heavy; heavier than any man on earth...The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it for ever." - Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
  6. foliage
    the collective amount of leaves of one or more plants
    "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees-my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath-a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff-he's always, always in my mind"- Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
  7. suspicion
    doubt about someone's honesty
    "The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up , but just went a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that's googling out buttermilk"-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
  8. impatient
    restless or short-tempered under delay or opposition
    "I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and eased-up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out." - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
  9. baffled
    perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements
    "He moaned to himself like some baffled, prowling beast." -A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
  10. perch
    an elevated place serving as a seat
    "The men, like shooting stars, slid from the deck, while Ahab, not so rapidly, was dropped from his perch"- Moby Dick, Herman Melvile
  11. troublesome
    difficult to deal with
    "You were always there under my feet, like a troublesome cat" -The Awakening, Kate Chopin
  12. protruding
    extending out above or beyond a surface or boundary
    "Those lights of human intelligence losing human expression, gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain uncatalogued creatures of the deep." - Billy Budd, Herman Melville
  13. alien
    from another place or part of the world
    "Those lights of human intelligence losing human expression, gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain uncatalogued creatures of the deep." - Billy Budd, Herman Melville
Created on Fri Sep 20 19:40:13 EDT 2013 (updated Wed Oct 09 15:10:45 EDT 2013)

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