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This word describes language that does not mean exactly what the words say. It means the words are being used to paint a picture, or to compare one thing to another. For example, if I say 'I could eat a horse,' I don't really mean I will eat a horse - that's figurative. The opposite is 'literal,' where the words mean exactly what they say. Teachers use 'figurative language' to talk about metaphors, , and other word-pictures like this.
比喻的（不是字面意思）
組成figure (a shape, a picture, a number) + -ative (an ending that means 'having this quality'). So figurative means 'working like a picture, not like the plain facts.'
同家族的字
- figurethe base word - a figurative meaning uses a word-picture instead of the plain, literal one
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
figurativeadj/ˈfɪɡəɹətɪv/
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Of use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures.
- Into an error of this kind they have fallen, who have claimed for the proverb, and made it one of its necessary conditions, that it should be a figurative expression. A moment’s consideration will be sufficient to disprove this. How many proverbs, such as Haste makes waste;—Honesty is the best policy, with ten thousand more, have nothing figurative about them.
- The lovers she seems to pursue with her figurative language in fact retreat under the barrage of similes, metaphors and fables.
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Metaphorically so called.
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With many figures of speech.
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Emblematic, symbolic; representative, exemplative.
- This, they will say, was figurative, and served, by God's appointment, but for a time, to shadow out the true glory of a more divine sanctity.
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artartsRepresenting forms recognisable in life and clearly derived from real object sources, in contrast to abstract art.
- 1875-1886, John Addington Symonds, Renaissance in Italy They belonged to a nation dedicated to the figurative arts, and they wrote for a public familiar with painted form.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。