Get a Taste for Similes With These 100 Sweet Comparisons

A Fun Way to Grasp the Definition of a Simile

Three blooming white lilies

John Burke / Getty Images

This list of 100 sweet similes (that is, figurative comparisons concerned with the quality of sweetness) has been adapted from an even larger collection in "A Dictionary of Similes" by Frank J. Wilstach, first published by Little, Brown, and Company in 1916.

Although students should have no trouble understanding most of these similes, they may find them a bit old-fashioned or too poetic. If so, encourage them to create some of their own using more contemporary subjects for comparison.

Similes About Flowers and Plants

  1. Sweet as odorous white lilies are. (Oscar Fay Adams)
  2. Sweet as a nut. (Anonymous)
  3. Sweet as a rose. (Anonymous)
  4. Sweet as a sugar plum. (Anonymous)
  5. Sweet as a vial of rose oil. (Anonymous)
  6. Sweet as honeysuckle. (Anonymous)
  7. Sweet as lilies in May. (Anonymous)
  8. Sweet as the perfume of roses. (Anonymous)
  9. Sweet as the honeyed dews that drip from the budding lotus-flower. (George Arnold)
  10. Sweet as some immeasurable rose, expanding leaf on leaf. (Aubrey de Vere)
  11. Sweet as the blossoms of the vine. (Robert Herrick)
  12. Sweet as the first snow-drop, which the sunbeams greet. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)
  13. Sweet as a rosebud crowned with moss. (Victor Hugo)
  14. Sweet as jasmine. (Jami)
  15. Sweet as morning dew upon a rose. (Thomas Lodge)
  16. Sweet as first spring violets. (Gerald Massey)
  17. Sweet as violet-borders growing over fountains over-flowing. (Ambrose Philips)
  18. Sweet as the dew-drops that fall on the roses in May. (Abram Joseph Ryan)
  19. Sweet as damask roses. (William Shakespeare)
  20. Sweet as new buds in spring. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
  21. Sweet as the apple-blossoms. (Celia Thaxter)

Similes About Nature

  1. Kiss as sweet, as cool fresh stream to bruised and weary feet. (Anonymous)
  2. Sweet as a honey bee. (Anonymous)
  3. Sweet as sugar. (Anonymous)
  4. Sweet as the last smile of sunset. (Edwin Arnold)
  5. Sweet as the infant spring. (Scottish ballad)
  6. Sweet as new wine. (John Baret)
  7. Sweet as the moonlight sleeping on the hills. (Sir William S. Bennett)
  8. Sweet as the light of the stars. (Robert Hugh Benson)
  9. Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide. (William Cullen Bryant)
  10. Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn. (Robert Burns)
  11. Sweet as May. (Thomas Carew)
  12. Sweet as the song of the wind in the rippling wheat. (Madison Cawein)
  13. Sweet as the whispered breeze of evening. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
  14. Sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
  15. Sweet as the rosy morn in May. (George Granville)
  16. Sweet as are the orchards, when the fruit is hanging ripe. (Paul Laurence Dunbar)
  17. Sweet as summer days that die when the months are in the bloom. (Will Wallace Harney)
  18. Sweet as tropic winds at night. (Paul Hamilton Hayne)
  19. As sweet as dewy turf to wayworn feet. (Emily H. Hickey)
  20. Sweet as a meadow at noon. (Katherine Tynan Hinkson)
  21. Sweet as the dawn star. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)
  22. Sweet as honey. (Homer)
  23. Sweet as scarlet strawberry under wet leaves hidden. (Nora Hopper)
  24. Sweet as the hills. (Richard Hovey)
  25. Sweet as blue heavens o'er enchanted isles. (John Keats)
  26. Sweet as a cat with syrup in its paws. (Vaughan Kester)
  27. Sweet as mountain honey. (Charles Kingsley)
  28. Sweet as heaven's image in an unrippled lake. (George W. Lovell)
  29. Sweet as summer's showers. (George MacHenry)
  30. Sweet as Eden. (George Meredith)
  31. Sweet as every-day sunshine. (John Muir)
  32. Sweet as a summer night without a breath. (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
  33. Sweet as running streams to men's way-wearied feet. (Algernon Charles Swinburne)
  34. Sweet as the dawn star. (Wilbur Underwood)

Similes About Feelings

  1. Sweet as that which is forbidden. (Arabic)
  2. Sweet and calm as is a sister's kiss. (P. J. Bailey)
  3. Sweet as the joy which sorrow hushes. (Honoré de Balzac)
  4. Sweet as applause to the actor. (Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher)
  5. As sweet as April. (Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher)
  6. Sweet as the look of a lover saluting the eyes of a maid. (Ambrose Bierce)
  7. Sweet as matrimony. (Robert Burton)
  8. Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved. (Lord Byron)​
  9. Sweet as pity. (Hartley Coleridge)
  10. Sweet as the hopes on which starv'd lovers feed. (Sir William Davenant)
  11. Sweet as a youthful poet's dream. (Charles Gray)
  12. Sweet as love. (John Keats)
  13. Sweet . . . as the sad spirit of the evening breezes. (Emma Lazarus)
  14. Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
  15. Sweet as first love. (Gerald Massey)
  16. Sweet as smiles to the lips that are pale. (Abram Joseph Ryan)
  17. Sweet as the dreamings of the nightingales. (Charles Sangster)
  18. Sweet as rest. (Algernon Charles Swinburne)
  19. Sweet as forgiveness. (Algernon Charles Swinburne)
  20. Sweet as when earth was new. (Algernon Charles Swinburne)
  21. Wild and sweet as regret. (Marie Van Vorst)
  22. Sweet as the lips that once you pressed. (William Winter)

Similes About Sounds

  1. As sweet as spring's first song heard in the grove's retreat. (Anonymous)
  2. Sweet as the harmonies of spring. (Anonymous)
  3. Sweet as the solemn sounds of cherubs, when they strike their golden harps. (Anonymous)
  4. Sweet as the harps that hung by Babel's stream. (Judah Halevi)
  5. Sweet as music. (Victor Hugo)
  6. Sweet as the twilight notes of the thrush. (Helen H. Jackson)
  7. Sweet as the sigh of the spring gale. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon)
  8. Sweet as the sound of bells at evening. (Richard Le Gallienne)
  9. Sweet as a bell in the woods. (Amy Leslie)
  10. Sweet as the cadence of a poet's song. (John Logan)
  11. A secret sweet as songs of dawn / That linnets sing when mists are gone. (Richard Monckton Milnes)
  12. Sweet as the sweetest song of bird on summer's eve. (D.M. Hervey)
  13. Sweet as Angel accents. (James Montgomery)
  14. Sweet, like an angel's sigh. (Mary R. Murphy)
  15. Sweet, like a silver whistle. (Ouida [Marie Louise Ramé])
  16. Music sweeter than the sweetest chime of magic bells by fairies set a-swinging. (Thomas Buchanan Read)
  17. Sweet as if angels sang. (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
  18. Sweet as a child's heart-lightening laugh to hear. (Algernon Charles Swinburne)
  19. Sweet as the voice of a mountain brook. (Arthur Symons)
  20. Sweet as children's prattle. (Pamela Tennant)
  21. Sweet as the music of Apollo's lyre. (Celia Thaxter)
  22. Sweet as the early pipe along the dale. (William Thomson)
  23. Sweet as the faint, far-off, celestial tone of angel whispers, fluttering from on high. (William Winter)
Format
mla apa chicago
Your Citation
Nordquist, Richard. "Get a Taste for Similes With These 100 Sweet Comparisons." ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2021, thoughtco.com/sweet-similes-list-1691870. Nordquist, Richard. (2021, February 11). Get a Taste for Similes With These 100 Sweet Comparisons. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/sweet-similes-list-1691870 Nordquist, Richard. "Get a Taste for Similes With These 100 Sweet Comparisons." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/sweet-similes-list-1691870 (accessed March 29, 2024).