Vocabulary: literal, idiomatic, figurative

Here are some useful words for talking about language. I sometimes use these words on this blog.

The adjective literal, adverb literally, means 'the true, usual meaning of something'.

For example, look at the post about lame/pathetic/sad. 'Sad' literally means 'unhappy'. But it can also mean 'uncool' or 'stupid'.

As another example, 'go over' has a literal meaning of 'move over something' (eg, 'I will go over the bridge'). But it has an idiomatic meaning of 'review or check something' (eg, 'I will go over my exam study notes').

I often use idiomatic as the opposite of 'literal'. Idiomatic words are used in a non-literal way. Perhaps they have a different meaning in a special combination (like 'look up' has a literal meaning, 'look to the sky' , and an idiomatic meaning, 'find information in a dictionary'.)

Another word that means the opposite to 'literal' is the adjective figurative (adverb figuratively).

If you speak figuratively, you use words in a non-literal way. For example, if I haven't eaten for a few hours, and I say 'I'm starving!', this is figurative speech. I am not actually suffering; I am not dying of hunger. I am just hungry.

Or, if I say I'm 'falling in love', I am not really falling. I am using figurative language, a figure of speech.

A few other figures of speech you might know:

It's raining cats and dogs. (=It's raining really hard.)

Break a leg! (=Good luck! (This is used for someone who is giving a performance, for example, you say "break a leg" to an actor before a show.))

I've got butterflies in my stomach. (=I feel really nervous.)

If you tried to understand these sentences literally, they would be very strange!!

Can you think of any other examples, in English, of idiomatic or figurative language? How about in your own language?