See Also: AGILITY, AWKWARDNESS, BODY ORGANS, FATNESS, MUSCLES, PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, SHOULDERS, STRENGTH, STOMACH, THINNESS

1. (A big soft) ass as wide as an axhandle —George Garrett
2. Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together —Charles Caleb Colton
3. Body grown light as a shell, empty as a shell —Joyce Carol Oates
4. The body is like a piano. It is needful to have the instrument in good order —Henry Ward Beecher
5. The body, lady, is like a house: it don’t go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like an automobile: always on the move —Flannery O’Connor See Also: SOUL
6. Body..light as milk —Philip Levine
7. Body like a block of granite —Brian Glanville
8. Body like a spring —Marguerite Duras
9. (Had a) body like a stack of lumpy pillows —Robert Campbell
10. Body like dry bone —Robert Silverberg
11. Body … long like a weasel’s —Anton Chekhov
12. Body … shaped like a sack half full of cement —Sterling Hayden
13. Body … silvery like a white rose —Isak Dinesen
14. The body turns empty as the shell of an insect, or like something inflatable but flattened —Jayne Anne Phillips
15. Body warm and flat as beer that’s been standing —Marge Piercy
16. Buddha-like body still as an onyx boulder —Ralph Ellison
17. Build like a sack of angle irons —Loren D. Estleman
18. Built like a bowling pin —Clive Cussler
19. (She’s hard to fit, being) built like a cement root cellar —Louise Erdrich
20. Built like a Coke machine —Joseph Wambaugh
21. Built like a crate —William Diehl
22. Built like a fire plug —Pat Conroy
23. Built like a greyhound —Miles Gibson
24. Built like a hammer —Lee K. Abbott
25. Built like a Russian weightlifter —William Diehl
26. Built like a skyscraper —Slogan, Shaw-Walker steel filing cabinets
27. Built like a snowman. A small round head atop a large round body with no neck in between —Rick Borsten
28. Built like a vault —Anon
29. Built like refrigerators —Jonathan Valin
30. Built solid, firm and square, like an unencumbered pine —Sylvia Berkman
31. Built square, like a van —William Beechcroft
32. Built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht —Ernest Hemingway

    A quick simile is about as much space as a master of conciseness like Hemingway devotes to physically describing a character. The woman with the racing yacht curves is Lady Brett from The Sun Also Rises .

33. Chest like a nail keg —Peter Matthiessen
34. Chest like an oak wine cask —Ira Wood
35. Chest like an oyster barrel —Ogden Nash
36. Chests and bellies like a pair of avalanches —T. Coraghessan Boyle
37. Chunky, heavy, like a Samoan swimmer —Herbert Gold
38. Corded and tough as a short piece of tallowed cable —George Foy

    The simile in Foy’s novel, Coaster, applies to a sailor.

39. Delicate and softly rounded as a painting by Boucher —F. van Wyck Mason
40. (Against the light of the lamp,) the delicate erotic lines of her slender body came up like a photographic print in a developing tray —Brian Moore
41. Even her hipbones [like rest of angular body] jutted out as if her skirt was draped on a coathanger —Richard Maynard
42. A figure like a beer barrel —Oscar Wilde

    A variation by Charles Johnson: “Broad as a beer barrel.”

43. Figure like a sack of flour —Josephine Tey
44. A figure like a two-armed Venus de Milo who had been on a sensible diet —David Niven

    Being an actor as well as a writer, Niven undoubtedly had a special appreciation for any device which would capture audience attention the minute the curtain rises; and so this simile from the first sentence of his autobiography, The Moon’s a Balloon .

45. Figure … so delicate that she moved like a shadow —Inez Haynes Irwin
46. (She had) a figure that was like a swift unexpected blow to the diaphragm —that to linger on makes the beholder feel obscene —Frederick Exley
47. A fine small body, like a miniature dog bred for show —Maureen Howard
48. (He was) flat and wide as a gingerbread man —Charles Portis
49. Flat-chested and straight as a board —MacDonald Harris
50. Graceful figure, which was as tough as hickory and as flexible as a whip —Thomas Wolfe
51. Her body seemed somehow to hang on her, like somebody else’s clothing —William McIlvanney
52. Her broad sexless body made her resemble a dilapidated Buddha —Ross Macdonald
53. Her firm protruding ass looked like a split peach —Steve Shagan
54. Hips like hills of sand —Arabian Nights
55. Hips like jugs —Eugene McNamara
56. His ancient, emaciated body looked as though it were already attacked by the corruption of the grave —W. Somerset Maugham
57. His body was covered with a dense mat of black hair. He looked like an overfed chimpanzee —Andrew Kaplan
58. His body waved like a flame in the breeze —Television obituary describing James Cagney’s physical grace, 1986
59. His pectorals hung flabbily, like the breasts of an old woman —Gerald Kersh
60. It [worn body] was as if it were charred by a thunderbolt —Honoré de Balzac
61. Long body, devoid of developed muscles, was like a long, limp sash —Yukio Mishima
62. Look like a hot-air balloon with insufficient ballast —Anna Quindlen, New York Times /Hers, March 27, 1986

    The cause for the hot-air balloon appearance is pregnancy.

63. (A man with) a middle like a flour bag —Sharon Sheehe Stark
64. (Kaplan was examining the) midriff bulge that ballooned out over his belt like an inflated inner tube —William P. Kennedy

    The simile marks the opening of Kennedy’s espionage novel, The Masakado Lesson.

65. (Was halfway through the process of turning from muscular to fat, so that at present he was) of uncertain consistency, like a cheap mattress —Richard Francis
66. Round and curved as a marble statue —George Garrett
67. A small boned body as easy to fragment as a young grouse’s —Penelope Gilliatt
68. A small, plump woman, with her waist cinctured in sternly, like a cushion with a noose around it —John Cheever
69. Spine … like an iron rod —Angela Carter
70. Square as a wooden block —T. Coraghessan Boyle
71. Square like a block of stone —Willis Johnson
72. (She no longer had her slim waist or rounded bosom but was) square like a stack of firewood —Isak Dinesen
73. (A massive woman … ) square, rather like a great piece of oak furniture —Willa Cather
74. Still had an athlete’s frame … but the flesh had sagged on the hanger, like an old suit with change left in the pockets —Jonathan Valin
75. Straight as a mast, muscled like a gorilla —Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings
76. A strong, supple body, like a tigress —Anthony Powell
77. Torso … thick and circular, like the bole of a tree —Madison Smartt Bell
78. (His body looked soft, his) waist puffing out like rising bread dough —Sue Grafton
79. We are bound to our bodies like an oyster to its shell —Plato
80. Weight was … beginning to hang like slightly inferior clothing —William Mcllvanney
81. (Jill Martin was what they call a healthy lady.) Well rounded, like something out of Rubens —Mike Fredman
82. (He was) wide as a door —Andre Dubus