If one says “Al-maniyyah ka-l-sabuʿ fī-l-shiddah” — death is like a predator in severity — both sides are explicitly named. Severity is stated as the shared feature, and the particle “ka” marks a simile.
If one says “Aẓfār al-maniyyah”, the predator is unnamed, but its attribute is present. The effect arises from speaking as though death had already been mentally placed among predators.
Thus merely shortening a sentence and forming an implicit metaphorical image are different operations. Omitting a source name is not sufficient without a meaningful characteristic and an appropriate context.