Whats the difference between a simile, a metaphor, and an analogy?
While these three terms are related, their meanings are subtly different. To help understand the distinction, we consulted a number of sources — American Heritage Dictionary, the Yahoo! Grammar, Usage, and Style category, and web search results for the three terms. The dictionary defines a “metaphor” as a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. For example, Shakespeare’s line, “All the world’s a stage,” is a metaphor comparing the whole world to a theater stage. Metaphors can be very simple, and they can function as most any part of speech. “The spy shadowed the woman”