FIGURATIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does figurative mean? 

• FIGURATIVE (adjective)
  The adjective FIGURATIVE has 2 senses:

1. (used of the meanings of words or text) not literal; using figures of speech

2. consisting of or forming human or animal figures

  Familiarity information: FIGURATIVE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FIGURATIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(used of the meanings of words or text) not literal; using figures of speech

Synonyms:

figurative; nonliteral

Context example:

figurative language

Similar:

analogical (expressing, composed of, or based on an analogy)

extended (beyond the literal or primary sense)

metaphoric; metaphorical (expressing one thing in terms normally denoting another)

metonymic; metonymical (using the name of one thing for that of another with which it is closely associated)

poetic (characterized by romantic imagery)

synecdochic; synecdochical (using the name of a part for that of the whole or the whole for the part; or the special for the general or the general for the special; or the material for the thing made of it)

tropical (characterized by or of the nature of a trope or tropes; changed from its literal sense)

Also:

rhetorical (given to rhetoric, emphasizing style at the expense of thought)

Antonym:

literal (limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Consisting of or forming human or animal figures

Synonyms:

figural; figurative

Context example:

the figurative art of the humanistic tradition

Similar:

representational ((used especially of art) depicting objects, figures,or scenes as seen)

 Context examples 

St. John's eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora's face had not admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy, for this unwholesome state of ours.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)