Sometimes used to refer to figurative language in general, metaphor specifically is a figure of speech in which a term or name is transferred to something to which it is not strictly applicable. It literally means to transfer. Hence, for example, “the blooming maid” transfers the idea of flowers coming into beauty to a young woman. This is distinct from a simile, in which the comparative terms as or like are left in the phrase, as in “a maid blooming like a flower. ”