A metaphor is a figure of speech that identifies something as being the same as some unrelated thing for rhetorical effect, thus highlighting the similarities between the two. While a simile compares two items, a metaphor directly equates them, and does not use "like" or "as" as does a simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature is the "All the world's a stage" monologue from As You Like It:

<poem>All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances[...]

—William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7</poem>