The article is a partitive study of the comparisons (similes) that appear in the texts of the writer in question, and at the same time it precedes a volume from a series Słownictwo pism Stefana Żeromskiego – Świat zwierząt [The Vocabulary in the Texts Written by Stefan Żeromski – the Animal World]. The animal world, as understood here, is wide, defined as the whole of living beings, both existing in reality and depicted symbolically (images, symbols, monuments, the signs of the zodiac). While researching the vocabulary referring to the animal world the author of the article uses not isolated lexemes but contexts, which are the basis for analyses and interpretations. The material basis of the article consists of comparisons occurring in Uroda życia and in the first two volumes of Popioły – altogether 124 contexts, which illustrate various relations of the sides. Stefan Żeromski was a master of comparisons, which is testified not only by their large number but first of all by their diversity from the point of view of their structure, meaning and lexical variety of components being compared. The writer knew his native language perfectly, and could skilfully take the full advantage of its potential, thanks to which he was able to create his literary world. In his comparisons the writer used many comparative conjunctions. In addition to the most frequent ones such as: jak, jakby, jako, he used many others: coś jak, coś jakby, jakoby, niby, niemal, podobny, na podobieństwo, na kształt, na obraz, lepszy od, gorszy od. From the point of view of the structure of components in the texts written by Żeromski there are simple and conventional comparisons, functioning in the language, as well as the more complicated ones. Included in the more complicated comparisons there are various consituations, which are called the plot contexts (a kind of consituation inside a text), and which – quite often – are poetic images.