simile

Figure of speech that in English uses the conjunctions like and as to express the comparison between two different things (‘run like the devil’; ‘as deaf as a post’). It is sometimes confused with metaphor. The simile makes an explicit comparison (suggesting that something is like something else), while a metaphor's comparison is implicit (suggesting that something is something else).

Not all comparisons using the words like or as are similes; for example, ‘the city of Bristol is like Boston’ literally compares two cities. However, in ‘the city of Bristol is like a fine old ship’ or ‘the city of Boston is like a fine old lady’, more imaginative comparisons are made, not city with city, but city with ship or lady. These analogical links between less obvious contexts are similes.

simile

In musical notation, directing the musician to continue performing a previously notated indication. For example, if the first few bars of a piece are marked staccato (detached) a composer may simply write simile rather than continue to mark individual staccato dots.