A figure of speech is a word or phrase with different meaning than the literal meaning.  An idiom is one such form of a figure of speech.  Idioms are often thought of as expressions that portray meaning through their exaggeration or visual image.  It requires the reader to think of the relationship between the words in the phrase and what conclusion can be made related to figurative meaning.  For example: “Raining cats and dogs!”  It isn’t literally raining cats and dogs but from this expression I can conclude that it is raining very hard.

Sounds complicated?!  Well…sometimes.  Look at the picture on the left.  It is full of figures of speech!  There are 27!  One example is the spoon in the mouth of our skeletal character.  This represents the idiom or figure of speech – “Silver spoon in his mouth”.  I took the literal representation in the picture to create the phrase.  This phrase actually refers to someone who has been born or in a position of wealth.  People often say this when they refer to someone having it easy, they didn’t have to work for their success or money.

Just for fun, try to find a few today!  If you can get the words on paper but can’t determine the meaning the link below might help or simply google the phrase with quotations and see what comes up!

http://www.idiomsite.com/index4.htm#s