different between metaphor vs metonym

English

Etymology

From Middle French métaphore, from Latin metaphora, from Ancient Greek ???????? (metaphorá), from ???????? (metaphér?, “I transfer, apply”), from ???? (metá, “with, across, after”) + ???? (phér?, “I bear, carry”)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m?.t?.f?/, /?m?t.?.f??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?m?t.?.f??/
• (US, rare) IPA^(key): /?m?.t?.f?/
• Hyphenation: me?ta?phor
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Noun

metaphor (countable and uncountable, plural metaphors)

1. (uncountable, rhetoric) The use of a word or phrase to refer to something other than its literal meaning, invoking an implicit similarity between the thing described and what is denoted by the word or phrase.

   Coordinate term: simile (when the similarity is made explicit by the words like or as)
2. (countable, rhetoric) A word or phrase used in such implied comparison.
   • 1874, John Seely Hart, First Lessons in Composition, page 92,

     A Metaphor may be changed into a Simile, and also into plain language, containing neither metaphor nor simile. Thus:

     Metaphor. — Idleness is the rust of the soul.

     Simile. — As rust is to iron, so is idleness to the soul, taking away its strength and power of resistance.

     Plain. — Idleness takes away from the soul its strength and power of resistance.

   • 1979, Daniel Breazeale (translator), Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense [1873, Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn], in Philosophy and Truth, page 84, quoted in 1998, Ian Markham, Truth and the Reality of God: An Essay in Natural Theology, page 103,

     What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seems to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.

3. (countable, graphical user interface) The use of an everyday object or concept to represent an underlying facet of the computer and thus aid users in performing tasks.

   desktop metaphor; wastebasket metaphor

Hypernyms

• (rhetoric): figure of speech, trope

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• analogy
• idiom
• metonymy, metonym
• simile
• allegory

Verb

metaphor (third-person singular simple present metaphors, present participle metaphoring, simple past and past participle metaphored)

1. (intransitive) To use a metaphor.
2. (transitive) To describe by means of a metaphor.

Anagrams

• prothema

English

Etymology

Back-formation from metonymy.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?t?n?m/
• Homophone: metanym

Noun

metonym (plural metonyms)

1. (grammar) A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy.
2. (by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas.

Synonyms

• synonym

Hyponyms

• synecdoche (rhetoric)

Translations

See also

• demonym
• metanym
• Category:English metonyms

Danish

Etymology

Back-formation from metonymi.

Noun

metonym n (singular definite metonymet, plural indefinite metonymer)

1. (grammar) metonym
   • 2011, Jan Krag Jacobsen, 29 spørgsmål, Samfundslitteratur (?ISBN), page 124

     Den lille trailer […] blev […] brugt som et metonym for sort arbejde.

     The little trailer […] was […] used as a metonym for undeclared work.

   • 2010, Krydsfelt Grundbog i Dansk, Gyldendal Uddannelse (?ISBN), page 133

     I Herman Bangs Stuk (1887) er den arkitektoniske stuk blot et udsnit af tidens pyntesyge overfladeliv bliver et metonym på samtiden.^[sic]

     In Herman Bang's Stuk (1887), the architectural stucco is only a slice of the gaudy surface life of the time becomes a metonym of the time.^[sic]

   • 2011, Thomas Wiben Jensen, Kognition og konstruktion: to tendenser i humaniora og den offentlige debat, Samfundslitteratur (?ISBN), page 250

     ... en tendens til at bruge hjernen som et metonym for ens personlighed, ...

     ... a tendency to use the brain as a metonym for one's personality, ...

Inflection

Swedish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?t??ny?m/, /m?t??ny?m/

Noun

metonym c

1. (linguistics) metonym

Declension