明喻是一种非常明显的比喻。由本体、喻体、比喻词构成。本体指被比喻的事物，喻体指作比喻的事物，比喻词是连接本体和输体的连接词。通常的格式是“甲像乙”。常用的比喻词有 “好比”、“ 宛然”、“宛如”、“恰似”、“犹如”、“仿佛”、“如……一 般”等。英语中常用“seem, appear, look like，as if ”等。但所用的喻体不能直接译成中文，多半需要转义，或引申原义才符合汉语习惯，比如：
Indeed, with the banks now holding some $600 billion worth of property loans at home and tens of billions more abroad, these mammoth lenders "seem to have turned into financial basket cases overnight."
—Business Week , Dec. 2, 1991 p.48
实际上，现在银行发放国内房地产贷款约6 000亿美元，囯外数百亿美元，这些放款巨头“似乎一夜之间变成了金融腐子，寸步维行”
——《国际商业与管理》，
1992年，第3期，第48页
上面句子里的basket caes原指战争中战士受伤后变成四肢伤残不全的人。这里喻指放款大亨转眼间变得像个瘸子运转不灵了。再看下面这两个例子：
a. The relationship with Wal-Mart, says one former high- ranking execurive, is " what killed the brand". Working with the chain, he says, was like “dancing with a gorilla, and suddenly you're married to it. ”
一Business Week , Dec.21，1992 p.72
一位前任髙级经理说，该公司同沃尔-马特的关系正是“其产品砸牌的根源”。他说，同这个连锁店合作，就像“与一个暴徙跳舞，一不小心你就被他结合了”。
b. Privately, several of the President's advisers contend that the current runaway spending on public and private health care is a growing burden on the economy, which, Like a surgical panent who must feel worse before he can get better, might need to endure modestly higher unemployment for several years as the price of reform. Trouble is, Clinton has not prepared the public for any sacrifice. He and his top health-care strategist, Ira Magaziner, have been selling health-care reform as a four-course free lunch. Everyone will be covered. It won't require new taxes. It will immediately boost job creation. And it will immediately reduce the federal deficit. "Several of us，" says a political adviser to Clinton, "are worried that we're creating expectations for health care that can't be met."
—TIME, Sept. 6，1993 p.33
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