Adjective : a figurative expression. ,His remark was a figurative boomerang. ,Elizabethan poetry is highly figurative.    From Dictionary.com. 

By then "I knew for sure I would never be a famous artist as long as the non-figurative was in vogue.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Georg Rauch: A Clear View All The Way To The Horizon] Reference

But now I point you to Stephen saying about his haptics which, to me, are abstract in the sense of being non-figurative.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-02-01] Reference

With their measured rhythmic pacing and self-contained, entirely non-figurative imagery, these films seem to invite a wholly different experience of viewing.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2007-10-01] Reference

Walk into any antiquarian bookstore, and I swear you'll find the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley gathering dust on a shelf and/or feeding the non-figurative bookworms.    From Wordnik.com.  [In search of lost nineteenth-century novelists] Reference

"Birgit & Birgit Centenary" spotlights female dance pioneers Birgit Cullberg and Birgit Åkesson, who represent two separate dance trends: Cullberg dramatic, narrative dance, and Åkesson non-figurative, "pure" dance.    From Wordnik.com.  [Time Off Europe Calendar] Reference

Hyperformalism is non-figurative abstraction in a hyper-medium, including abstract objects arranged in simulated space, navigable on a network, as well as expressions of reactive and interactive artwork behaviors and geometric or algorithmic pattern play in 2, 3, and 4 dimensions.    From Wordnik.com.  [Kiss the Sky: Tipping point on the axis of a virtual world] Reference

Think about it: as a listener, you're presented with a sequence of sounds, that may or may not have some arithmetically vibrational relation to each other, being generated by serious-looking people working machines that aren't terribly practical, usually in some sort of formalized setting, and somehow, from this non-figurative gibberish, you convince yourself that these sounds mean something, either emotionally or narratively, and you're moved by it.    From Wordnik.com.  [I tried to fake it; I don't mind saying, I just can't make it] Reference

For, in the first place, Self-hood does not belong to the vital air in any non-figurative sense.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1] Reference

I like the idea of pushing it as non-figurative as I want, and bringing it back to where I think it needs to have the visual impact of the figuration.    From Wordnik.com.  [Evening Standard - Home] Reference

Continuity is ruptured and development arrested by the interpolation of neo-baroque tableaux and triptychs, non-figurative landscape spells, colourful populist phases, or clothed children.    From Wordnik.com.  [the art life] Reference

The apostles were not sure that they understood the Master's lesson; though couched in plain, non-figurative language, it was to some of them very like a parable, and Peter asked an exposition.    From Wordnik.com.  [Jesus the Christ A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern] Reference

The quality of being the Self, in the first place, belongs to the highest Lord in its primary (non-figurative or non-derived) sense, as we know from such texts as 'That is the Self,' 'That art thou.'.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1] Reference

"Unique Act By Sean Scully" shows non-figurative painting works by Frederic Matys Thursz, Sean Scully, Carmengloria Morales, Seán Shanahan and Ruth Root as part of the gallery's centenary celebration.    From Wordnik.com.  [Time Off Europe Calendar] Reference

THE EDELSCHEINS: A CLOSER LOOK, Features new work from Henrietta and Reinhold Edelschein, a Mount Airy husband-and-wife team: She creates sculptures based on the human form, while his paintings are completely non-figurative abstractions.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Clog] Reference

At the start of his career Van Doesburg was a competent figurative painter, his work reminiscent of Van Gogh in early, potato-eater mode; but he soon came in contact with non-figurative painting and in 1916 met Mondrian, newly returned from Paris.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Guardian World News] Reference

Henry, I’m not against abstraction per se, just non-figurative abstraction.    From Wordnik.com.  [Experience, Figuration, the Avant-Garde, My Grouse : Ange Mlinko : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation] Reference

Generally speaking, that which is ‘abstract' is understood as the non-figurative, the symbolic, the transcendent.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mute - ‘The Simple Expression of Complex Thought’: For a Media Theory of Expression] Reference

I mean, I don’t eschew abstraction, even non-figurative abstraction, but I think that past attempts to overthrow figuration (and syntax, and reference) was a fun bonding experience for certain homosocial coteries, and it left us with a lot of rhetoric.    From Wordnik.com.  [Writing and Failure (Part 8) : Christian Bök : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation] Reference

'abstract' or non-figurative. ".    From Wordnik.com.  [North Coast Journal Comments] Reference

"non-representational" or "non-figurative".    From Wordnik.com.  [Not PC] Reference