Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use figurative in a sentence

13 example sentences · adjective

Figurative means of use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures. Example: “The lovers she seems to pursue with her figurative language in fact retreat under the barrage of similes, metaphors and fables.”

Examples of figurative by meaning

adjectiveOf use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures.

  • The lovers she seems to pursue with her figurative language in fact retreat under the barrage of similes, metaphors and fables.2005 May 1, “The Sea of Love”, in New York Times
  • It is important to emphasize that Kafka as an autistic person was not always consciously aware his interpretations and writings were literal, thus the line between literal and figurative were not consciously clear for Kafka.2017 May 16, Jerry Stuger, “Kafka and Autism. The Undisclosed Logic Behind Kafka’s Work”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders...

More sentences with figurative

  • The authentic proverbs are more figurative than factual, more metaphorical or personificative than matter-of-fact.2010, S. A. Ambanasom, Education of the Deprived: Anglophone Cameroon Literary Drama, page 44. From the entry personificative
  • In Mantova’s Chiesa Sant’Andrea the distinction between the decorative and the figurative is more obvious.2008, Metamorphosed Margins: The Case for a Visual Rhetoric of the Renaissance Grottesche Under the Influence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses…. From the entry antiquize
  • Whilst the grottesca candelaber pilaster “antiquize”, the figurative scenes narrate Christian stories.2008, Metamorphosed Margins: The Case for a Visual Rhetoric of the Renaissance Grottesche Under the Influence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses…. From the entry antiquize
  • “Vessels are so over” is the apparent subtext of this potpourri of the figurative, abstract and installational.2007 September 7, Roberta Smith, “It’s Just Clay, but How About a Little Respect?”, in New York Times. From the entry installational
  • S from the bloodsuckers of Hollywood; this figurative talisman would also convert the naysayers into idolators.2003, George Jacobs, William Stadiem, Mr. S: my life with Frank Sinatra, page 137. From the entry antivampire
  • So, management decision(s) making is about figurative synthesis – troping literal meaning – as much as it might be analysis.2015, Alun Munslow, “Managing the Past”, in Patricia Genoe McLaren, Albert J. Mills, Terrance G. Weatherbee, editors, The Routledge…. From the entry trope
  • In effect there is no access to the usure of a linguistic phenomenon without giving it some figurative representation.2012, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition, page 390. From the entry usure
  • There is a real figurative homogeneity in the statuettes, even when fabricated from diverse raw materials (ivory and marlacious limestone for the Kostenki group).1993, Heidi Knecht, Anne Pike-Tay, Randall Keith White, Before Lascaux: The Complex Record of the Early Upper Paleolithic. From the entry marlacious
  • The coactivation of A and B as the literal and figurative senses of the expression constitutes the recognition of its metaphorical nature.1987, Ronald W. Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, page 169. From the entry coactivation
  • I began this book by proposing nineteenth-century undergrounds like Mammoth Cave as intertexts for Invisible Man’s underground, which help us understand its potent combination of literal and figurative subterraneity.2023, Lara Langer Cohen, “The ‘Blackness of Darkness’ in Mammoth Cave”, in Going Underground: Race, Space, and the Subterranean in the…. From the entry subterraneity
  • The many libel and defamation suits that litter the courts show that the figurative brickbat hurts just as much as, if not more than, the literal one.2020 February 7, Shashi Tharoor, “Shashi Tharoor’s Word of the Week: Brickbat”, in Hindustan Times, New Delhi: HT Media, →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry brickbat

Meaning of figurative

  1. adjective Of use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures.
  2. adjective Metaphorically so called.
  3. adjective With many figures of speech.

Full definition of figurative

Questions about figurative in a sentence

How do you use figurative in a sentence?
Figurative is used as an adjective. For example: “The lovers she seems to pursue with her figurative language in fact retreat under the barrage of similes, metaphors and fables.”
What is a short sentence with figurative?
“Whilst the grottesca candelaber pilaster “antiquize”, the figurative scenes narrate Christian stories.”
What does figurative mean?
Figurative means of use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: figurative (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use figurative in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/figurative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.