See Also: GROWTH, PERVASIVENESS

1. (Anxiety was) as contagious as a yawn —Barbara Lazear Ascher, New York Times/Hers, October 23, 1986
2. Blown up [with fever] like a tire —Elena Poniatowska
3. (Excuses) breaking out like pimples —Marge Piercy
4. Breed like guinea pigs —Raymond Chandler
5. Catch happiness as quickly as others catch colds —Storm Jameson
6. Catching like fire in dry grass —William Dean Howells
7. Contagious like the gladness of a happy child —Edward Bulwer-Lytton
8. Excitement swept through Jalna [the estate which is the setting for a series of De La Roche novels] like a forest fire —Mazo De La Roche
9. Expand like air in a pressure chamber —Penelope Gilliatt
10. Gather like dust on a windowsill —Anon
11. Multiply like troubles —Marge Piercy
12. Passed around [German measles] like a dish of cool figs at the first rehearsal —Reynolds Price
13. (Houses) popping up everywhere like the heat rash. Like pimples —George Garrett
14. Spread a thought … like butter on toast —Carlos Fuentes
15. (Feel her pleasure deepening and) spreading like a chord struck in all octaves at once, sustained, played, and then held and held till it slowly faded into its overtones —Marge Piercy
16. (She looked at me, recognition) spreading like a rash —Sharon Sheehe Stark
17. (Pain) spreading like lava —John Braine
18. Spreading [throughout her system] … like poison dye —Margaret Millar

    In the mystery novel, The Fiend, the author uses the simile to describe a key character’s growing alertness to a dangerous situation.

19. (Affection … ) spread like an epidemic through the room —Jean Stafford
20. Spread like an unconfirmed rumor —Elyse Sommer
21. Spread like a quenchless fire —Percy Bysshe Shelley
22. Spread … like a tiny spray of ink on a piece of blotting paper —Franz Werfel
23. Spread like butter under a knife —Lawrence Durrell
24. Spread like dandelions after spring rain —Marilyn Ross about growth of directories, Publishers Weekly, June 5, 1987
25. (But they cling and) spread like lichen —Elizabeth Bishop
26. Spread like mushrooms after a fresh spring rain —Anon

    Mushrooms have long lent themselves to quick growth comparisons. A variation: “Grow like toadstools.”

27. Spread like mushrooms across an unsuspecting garden —Tom Robbins
28. Spread like pancake batter on a hot griddle —Elyse Sommer
29. Spread like the desert —Henry James
30. (Silence) spread … like water that a pebble stirs —Dante Gabriel Rossetti
31. Spread out like a doily —Alma Stone
32. Spread out (the sun) like a jellyfish —John Steinbeck
33. (I saw the vineyards) spread out like wings —Eudora Welty
34. Spreads faster than panic in a plane —Donald Seaman
35. Spreads like a sigh —Anon
36. (Love that) spreads like a stain of ink in absorbent cloth —Diane Wakoski

    As poet Wakoski links the spreading stain with love in her poem, My Little Heart Pops Out, so W. H. Auden uses “Ruin spreading like a stain” in Something Is Bound to Happen.

37. Spreads like good news —Slogan for Satinwax, Economic Laboratory
38. Spread through like a clumsy, uninvited guest who is obese and eats too much —Lorrie Moore

    The descriptive frame of reference in Moore’s novel, Self-Help, is cancer.

39. (Enemies … are) sprouting (around me) like tulips —Peter Benchley