Log in or Sign up
  1. allegory love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
  2. n. A story, picture, or play employing such representation. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are allegories.
  3. n. A symbolic representation: The blindfolded figure with scales is an allegory of justice.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A figurative treatment of a subject not expressly mentioned, under the guise of another having analogous properties or circumstances; usually, a sentence, discourse, or narrative ostensibly relating to material things or circumstances, but intended as an exposition of others of a more spiritual or recondite nature having some perceptible analogy or figurative resemblance to the former.
  2. n. A method of speaking or writing characterized by this kind of figurative treatment.
  3. n. In painting and sculpture, a figurative representation in which the meaning is conveyed symbolically. Synonyms Simile, Metaphor, Comparison, etc. See simile.
  4. To employ allegory; allegorize.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The representation of abstract principles by characters or figures.
  2. n. A picture, book, or other form of communication using such representation.
  3. n. A symbolic representation.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.
  2. n. Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
  3. n. (Paint. & Sculpt.) A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object painted or sculptured.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances; an extended metaphor
  2. n. a visible symbol representing an abstract idea
  3. n. a short moral story (often with animal characters)

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English allegorie, from Old French allegorie, from Latin allegoria, from Ancient Greek ἀλληγορία (allēgoria), from ἄλλος (allos, "other") + ἀγορεύω (agoreuō, "I speak") (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English allegorie, from Latin allēgoria, from Greek, from allēgorein, to interpret allegorically : allos, other; see al-1 in Indo-European roots + agoreuein, to speak publicly (from agora, marketplace; see ger- in Indo-European roots). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Show 10 more examples...

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘allegory’.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • tankexmortis A tool for those with little imagination. Dec 4, 2006

Tweets

Looking for tweets for allegory.

‘allegory’ has been looked up 8090 times, loved by 5 people, added to 84 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 12.