How to Use figurative in a Sentence

figurative

adjective

• In his first year on the job, the figurative script often ended up in tatters.
  — Nathan Ruiz, baltimoresun.com, 16 Aug. 2020
• At a time when the world seems topsy-turvy, the moon is a literal and figurative rock.
  — Nicole Clausing, Sunset Magazine, 24 Sep. 2020
• Her figurative images portray saints and scenes from the Bible.
  — New York Times, 18 Sep. 2020
• They were supposed to watch for examples of figurative language.
  — The Salt Lake Tribune, 15 Sep. 2020
• The speakers addressed a literal void, but also a figurative one.
  — Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 26 Aug. 2020
• Jerrell Gibbs is an emerging figurative artist who grew up in Baltimore.
  — Washington Post, 17 Aug. 2020
• The last thing the Padres can afford, in the figurative but potentially literal sense, is to miss this window.
  — Bryce Miller Columnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Aug. 2020
• Sadly, that’s not entirely surprising at a time when walls, both literal and figurative, are a frequent source of division and controversy.
  — George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Aug. 2020
• Giant pandas are literal and figurative icons of the worldwide conservation movement.
  — Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Aug. 2020
• Notre Dame threw the first figurative punch of the game.
  — The New York Times, New York Times, 25 Mar. 2023
• The figurative painter Chaz Guest has fans in high places.
  — New York Times, 2 Feb. 2022
• The creator of the art is detached from it the moment the figurative pen lid clicks shut.
  — Howard Murphy, Rolling Stone, 20 Oct. 2023
• The word took on a more figurative sense in the 19th century.
  — Suzannah Showler, WIRED, 3 Oct. 2023
• But at the start of The Rings of Power, most of the Elvish elite is intent on placing its figurative head in the proverbial sand.
  — Daniel Bessner, The New Republic, 7 Sep. 2022
• Fields is in a figurative room where his only peer is Lawrence, whom the Tigers lost for two weeks because of the virus.
  — Stephen Means, cleveland, 12 Nov. 2020
• The first step involves looking in the mirror, in the figurative sense.
  — Andrew Weinberg, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2021
• One of the paintings that graced Vidal’s study was a figurative work by his friend Rudolf Nureyev.
  — Christopher Bollen, Town & Country, 8 June 2022
• But after four years cooped up in a monastery, Mary runs away and heads straight for (figurative) sin city.
  — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2023
• So, in a figurative sense, the aquarium is killing two birds with one stone.
  — Christine Condon, baltimoresun.com, 22 Feb. 2022
• That got a figurative shot in the arm this week with some federal help.
  — Ike Morgan | [e-mail], al, 11 Dec. 2020
• With the book, Canales flung open a door and let people peer into the figurative skeletons in his closet.
  — Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer, 30 Jan. 2024
• Pegues is more concerned with his team’s lack of figurative fight.
  — Brett Dawson, The Courier-Journal, 2 Mar. 2022
• Sometimes the messaging is more figurative, as in the climate-change metaphors of the Frozen franchise or Game of Thrones.
  — Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 20 Apr. 2021
• The results for 2020 are all over the figurative as well as literal map.
  — John Pfaff, The New Republic, 21 June 2021
• The venture, though, which was financed through a loan, came at a steep cost, in literal and figurative terms.
  — Gary Baum, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Sep. 2023
• The figurative sense in which the Navy is at sea is more important and more dangerous.
  — Seth Cropsey, WSJ, 27 Apr. 2021
• Teddy Roosevelt is astride Central Park West one day and in the (figurative) basement the next.
  — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 13 Mar. 2022
• And between him and the finish line were all kinds of bumps, both figurative and literal.
  — Julie Jag, The Salt Lake Tribune, 22 Jan. 2022
• Widening the figurative tent can’t come at the expense of those who crave new leadership most, or we are doomed to repeat the 2016 election.
  — Brea Baker, refinery29.com, 11 Sep. 2024
• The pair stand before the older man as literal and figurative ghosts – close in proximity but separated by an insurmountable metaphysical divide.
  — Ben Croll, IndieWire, 12 Sep. 2024

Last Updated: 26 Oct 2024