Home › Glossary › Letter H

Hidden simile

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A simile implied rather than explicitly stated, often through contextual suggestion

Detailed Definition
A hidden simile is a figurative comparison implied through context, imagery, or syntax rather than explicit “like” or “as,” requiring the reader to infer the analogy; it creates subtlety and depth by embedding metaphorical thinking within descriptive language without overt signaling.
Example
Example in poetry:
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” hides a simile comparing life choices to diverging paths without using “like” or “as”; Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” implies a simile through metaphor; Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 hides simile in “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” by embedding comparison in rhetorical question; Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” uses hidden similes between perception and object.
Additional Notes
A hidden simile implies comparison without using “like” or “as”; creates subtlety and invites reader inference—common in imagist or modernist poetry.
Also Known As
Implied comparison veiled simile covert likeness unspoken metaphor Concealed metaphor Veiled comparison
Skip to main content