Movement Metaphors, Analogies and Similes

Nodded slightly like a restrained auction bidder.

Outside the victim's house members of the press hung about like bats, wet on their own drool.

He halted in rigid bomb disposal posture.

Your rage against capitalism will hurt only you; as though banging your head against a brick wall is going to make the wall soft.

Jerome entered the youth club with ridiculous caution like someone imitating a burglar.

The stressed-out Italian gesticulated like a conductor commanding an orchestra through a fast discordant passage.

The row over. He backed out of the room without turning like a courtier leaving a monarch.

He's such a weak blancmange that when he lets out the bathwater, he can hardly fight the current.

Uncle Syed walked like he had drawing pins in his shoes.

Outside HQ, Jeff aggressively held a lit fag like it was a dart.

Up and down like a fiddler's elbow.

They pumped as much muscular effort into the conversation as I would carrying a fat man up five flights of stairs.

Slower than a collection of tortoises rampaging through glue.

Behind the Post Office counter, Kelvin moved like an old man slowly trying to learn good posture.

A young gymnast as whippy and flexible as a headmaster’s bamboo cane.

Reg rocked, hither and thither, like an insane genius waiting to take an exam that nobody is clever enough to set him.

Lori went bargain-shopping with the same clear purpose as Kelly Holmes entered the home straight.

Roland got up with a lady-discus-thrower movement.

The inspector had quickly changed his position like the jaunty slippers of a matador.

Bored parents sat by the swings in a trance, each person as inert as an organ on a medical tray.

The hotel service was a tad slow. Savannah berated the receptionist then churned away like a Mississippi steamer.

On Amy's side of the bedroom, shoes were random motionless lizards.

Unhurried as an old steam-engine shunting, and just as difficult to stop.

The London bus journey was as uncomfortable as crossing the Alps in a prison van.

After introducing myself, Claude reared back as though I’d hung a week old mackerel under his nose.

He shot up those stairs like a hyperthyroidic rat up a drain-pipe.

The bankers burrowed away from the light like red tiger worms into mud.

Syed's illness had changed his gait to a heavy-legged man struggling to walk a boat during stormy seas.

She is so wired she can thread a sewing machine while it's still running.

The new intake of students have the drive and energy of snails on Valium.

His eyes followed the action on the pitch like bubbles in a spirit-level.

Spike's crushing handshake proved as effective as a tourniquet.

She has the grace and poise of a Ukrainian shot-putter.

The victim hit the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.

Denise chopped and multi-tasked around the kitchen like a virtuoso playing high-speed ragtime piano.

Civilization is a movement, not a condition; a voyage, not a harbour.

Lance turned like a weathercock whipped around by the wind.

As he sat listening to the opposition taunts he writhed like a worm on a hook.

Dance

Our tap-dance class displays the discreet choreography of a herd of club-footed elephants.

It would be easier to have the Blackpool Tower as a dance partner.

You dance like a drunk stamping on cockroaches.

At the wedding, Gareth danced like a ferret in fire.

Dance is the hidden language of the heart.

The youths danced like Indians braves stamping out a camp fire.

People who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear music.

Dancing is like a shower: one wrong turn and you're in hot water.

The art of living is more like that of wrestling than dancing; the main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unforeseen attack.