Cryptic vs Figurative - What's the difference?
cryptic | figurative |
Having hidden meaning.
Mystified or of an obscure nature.
* Glanvill
Involving use of code or cipher/cypher.
(zoology) Well camouflaged; having good camouflage.
(informal) A cryptic crossword.
* 1996 , Mary McCarthy, Remember Me (page 85)
* 2009 , Bill Taylor, Building a crossword'' (in ''Toronto Star , 1 February 2009)
Metaphorical or tropical, as opposed to literal; using figures; as of the use of "cats and dogs" in the phrase "It's raining cats and dogs".
* '>citation
Metaphorically so called
With many figures of speech
Emblematic; representative
* Hooker
* J. A. Symonds
As adjectives the difference between cryptic and figurative
is that cryptic is having hidden meaning while figurative is metaphorical or tropical, as opposed to literal; using figures; as of the use of "cats and dogs" in the phrase "it's raining cats and dogs".As a noun cryptic
is (informal) a cryptic crossword.cryptic
English
(wikipedia cryptic)Alternative forms
* cryptick (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)- Her [nature's] more cryptic ways of working.
- Lonomia caterpillars are extremely cryptic .
Noun
(en noun)- He settled down to the cryptic in the Independent . He loved his crossword. It kept him mentally active, just as gossip did his wife.
- This writer has been solving cryptics for 40 years and can usually crack Araucaria, though it might take a couple of days.
Derived terms
* cryptically * cryptogramfigurative
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- This, they will say, was figurative , and served, by God's appointment, but for a time, to shadow out the true glory of a more divine sanctity.
- They belonged to a nation dedicated to the figurative arts, and they wrote for a public familiar with painted form.
