figurative

What it means

1. Of use as a metaphor, simile, metonym or other figure of speech, as opposed to literal; using figures.

   The lovers she seems to pursue with her figurative language in fact retreat under the barrage of similes, metaphors and fables.

   2005 May 1, “The Sea of Love”, in New York Times

   2 more examples

   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.

   1861, Richard Chenevix Trench, chapter 1, in Proverbs and Their Lessons, Fifth edition, page 18

   It is important to emphasize that Kafka as an autistic person was not always consciously aware his interpretations and writings were literal, thus the line between literal and figurative were not consciously clear for Kafka. This blurring stems from the specific focus of autistic persons who look at external predictable behavior of people and situations rather than at internal mental states of individuals. Kafka wrote from his autistic perspective in which the literal form is a default state of understanding the external world. For Kafka to move beyond the literal is not only to express that which cannot be said literally, but to express that which is not literal. The figurative is not simply not the literal, it is more than the literal. It is beyond the literal. The gap between the literal and the figurative, across which the reader is compelled by language to traverse, is for Kafka also the space which language cannot adequately express. The use of parable by Kafka marks his most concentrated effort to examine the space between language and that which is beyond language.

   2017 May 16, Jerry Stuger, “Kafka and Autism. The Undisclosed Logic Behind Kafka’s Work”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, volume 47, →DOI, pages 2336–2347

   Synonyms: metaphorical, symbolic, tropic, allegorical

2. Metaphorically so called.
3. With many figures of speech.

In a sentence

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.

1861, Richard Chenevix Trench, chapter 1, in Proverbs and Their Lessons, Fifth edition, page 18

Where it comes from

1. Middle Frenchfiguratif
2. Englishfigurative

From Middle French figuratif.