How to Use figurative in a Sentence

figurative

adjective

• 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
• At a time when the world seems topsy-turvy, the moon is a literal and figurative rock.
  — Nicole Clausing, Sunset Magazine, 24 Sep. 2020
• That got a figurative shot in the arm this week with some federal help.
  — Ike Morgan | [e-mail], al, 11 Dec. 2020
• In his first year on the job, the figurative script often ended up in tatters.
  — Nathan Ruiz, baltimoresun.com, 16 Aug. 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
• O’Halloran: The Broncos have put all of their figurative eggs in Lock’s basket.
  — Mark Kiszla, The Denver Post, 30 Mar. 2020
• Didn’t kill her in a literal sense, didn’t kill her in a figurative sense.
  — Lili Anolik, Vulture, 12 Nov. 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
• But not knowing my place has come at a cost, both in literal and figurative terms.
  — Time, 1 Aug. 2023
• But now the iconic gag (both literal and figurative) is on its last breath.
  — Vulture, 7 Nov. 2023
• Narrowing the Nazca field The team chose to focus on the smaller and more figurative of the two types of symbols discovered in the desert.
  — Katie Hunt, CNN, 27 Sep. 2024
• Her figurative images portray saints and scenes from the Bible.
  — New York Times, 18 Sep. 2020
• Her tiny pink bandana acts as a literal and figurative tie to her past.
  — Courtney Howard, Variety, 18 Sep. 2023
• Their first and only job was as a literal and figurative background player, setting the stage for the star soloist to dazzle the crowd.
  — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 7 Nov. 2022
• Given the initial success rate of the fieldwork based on the AI model, at least 248 additional figurative geoglyphs could be discovered, according to an estimate from the study.
  — Katie Hunt, CNN, 27 Sep. 2024

Last Updated: 13 Dec 2024