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antonomasia

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“

To be a Chueta, to spring from the street of the Silversmiths, which by antonomasia is called "the street," is the greatest disgrace which can happen to a Majorcan.

—The Dead Command From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan

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Definitions (4)

American Heritage Dictionary (2)

noun The substitution of a title or epithet for a proper name, as in calling a sovereign "Your Majesty.”
noun The substitution of a personal name for a common noun to designate a member of a group or class, as in calling a traitor a "Benedict Arnold.”

Century Dictionary (1)

GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (5)

Per me è stato un evento davvero unico, tanto per le sessioni quanto per il fatto che è "l'occasione" per antonomasia per incontrarci tutti (o quasi) insieme. — Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now
By antonomasia proper names may become general terms, as if we say _'A — Logic Deductive and Inductive
To be a Chueta, to spring from the street of the Silversmiths, which by antonomasia is called "the street," is the greatest disgrace which can happen to a Majorcan. — The Dead Command From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan
O.S.A. [98] _Ordinarios_: an appellation of ecclesiastical judges who try causes in the first instance, and, by antonomasia, of the bishops themselves, regarded as judges in their respective dioceses — The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55 1637-38 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century
What is generally called art, by antonomasia, collects intuitions that are wider and more complex than those which we generally experience, but these intuitions are always of sensations and impressions. — Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic

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Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Latin, from Greek antonomazein, to name instead : anti-, instead of; see anti- + onomazein, to name (from onoma, name; see nŏ̄-men- in Indo-European roots).

Century Dictionary (1)

Latin, from Greek ἀντονομασία, from ἀντονομάζειν, call by another name, from ἀντί, instead of, + ὀνομάζειν, name, from ὅνομα, name, = Latin nomen = English name.

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/æntɑnəˈmeɪʒɪə/

by American Heritage

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