Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In rhetoric, change of name; a trope or figure of speech that consists in substituting the name of one thing for that of another to which the former bears a known and close relation. It is a method of increasing the force or comprehensiveness of expression by the employment of figurative names that call up conceptions or associations of ideas not suggested by the literal ones, as Heaven for God, the Sublime Porte, for the Turkish government, head and heart for intellect and affection, the town for its inhabitants, the bottle for strong drink, etc. See
synecdoche .
Wiktionary
- n. The use of a single characteristic or name of an object to identify an entire object or related object.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A trope in which one word is put for another that suggests it
WordNet 3.0
- n. substituting the name of an attribute or feature for the name of the thing itself (as in `they counted heads')
Etymologies
- Late Latin metōnymia, from Greek metōnumiā : meta-, meta- + onuma, name; see nŏ̄-men- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Not all figuration is metaphoric though; in metonymy, the process of interpretation is not based on resemblances but on other forms of association -- the association of a crown with a king, for example, such that we use the artefact as a metonymic stand-in for the person.”
“Hope, by a metonymy, is put for the thing hoped for, namely, heaven and the felicities thereof, called emphatically that hope, because it is the great thing we look and long and wait for; and a blessed hope, because, when attained, we shall be completely happy for ever.”
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation)
“metonymy" is a blind, mutilated metonymy — in fact, more of a catachresis than a metonymy.”
“By a well-known figure of speech, called metonymy, we use a word denoting the means by which we accomplish anything to denote the end accomplished; we exercise care over anything by means of foresight, and indicate that care by the word foresight.”
“The technique that McCloud uses in the second panel is called metonymy -- creating the meaning for something by showing a related thing.”
“The news media like to employ a figure of speech called metonymy and regularly claim to have received statements from streets and buildings.”
“Privy and closet are examples of euphemism by metonymy, which is the substitution of the name of an attribute of a thing for the thing itself: a toilet is a private place, therefore a privy.”
“Throughout, the metaphor of brother against brother is a kind of metonymy for civil butchery in which family members slaughter one another in a grim contest of reciprocity.”
Shakespeare
“[FN#8] A manner of metonymy, meaning that he rested his cheek upon his right hand.”
“A Rose Is a Rose (Ralph), 2006, is less with the formal progression of the medium than with extrapolations of the embedded spirituality in earlier Abstract Expressionism, in this case by way of the concept of "metonymy" posited by Aboriginal cultures of her native”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘metonymy’.
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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Rhetorical Devices
syllepsis, zeugma, trope, wellerism, anastrophe, anaphora, apostrophe, metonymy, chiasmus, antimetabole, syncope, open-list and 431 more...
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Wordplay & Pun
wordplay, pound, conceit, clinch, joke, quibble, equivoque, double-entendre, quillet, calembour, carriwitchet, paranomasia and 89 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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jaydrox's list
Mah list!
mediocracy, captivatingly, devastatingly, dazedly, heavenly, flawless, copious, conviction, synoptic, amalgamation, prefatory, precursory and 150 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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Rhetoric: The Harlot of the Arts
Words to do with rhetoric--study of, history of, practice of, theory of
rhetoric, paralepsis, invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery, copia, consubstantiation, trope, colon, tricolon and 56 more...
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-onym, -onymous, -onymic
denoting or relating to names
acronym, synonymous, patronymic, antonym, ananym, anonym, aptronym, autonym, caconym, cohyponym, cryptonym, dionym and 29 more...
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Literary critical terms
cathexis, catachresis, polyvocal, alterity, liminality, liminal, limn, erasure, metonymic, intertextual, intrapoetic, contradistinction and 66 more...
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Terms for AP Lit
This list is designed to be a reference for my AP Lit. students
symbolism, archetype, polysyndeton, ellipsis, anaphora, diction, asyndeton, chiasmus, syntax, oxymoron, logos, fallacy and 28 more...
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chained_bear "de de, dedede... metonymy de de de de.... metonymy de de, dedede, dedede, dedede, dedede dede de de dede de!" Dec 30, 2007
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andrew.simone Such an important word in contemporary Continental thought. Dec 8, 2006