The figurative language that is used by Mr Shiflet reveals that he is a character who is intelligent and wise. To be able to use an appropriate analogy requires knowledge and experience. This means that Mr Shiflet is old and has gone through a lot of things in his life.
The theme of The Lottery is that blindly following tradition can be dangerous. This story explores the concept of unquestioningly following past ways and not asking the reason behind doing things. We see that this ignorance eventually leads to the loss of life, and for seemingly no purpose.
You can look at the words in front and behind it, because they refer to this big word. You may find a synonym of the word or a close reference. So for example in this sentence: I was excited and ambitious to learn about cars today. So this is a easy example. You can use exited to define ambitious if you dont know what ambitious means.
