metonymy

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“
The technique that McCloud uses in the second panel is called metonymy -- creating the meaning for something by showing a related thing.

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Definitions (4)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun 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.

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Examples (50)

  • I will use another figure of speech, metonymy, wherein a thing is named for one of its attributes, or names of related things are exchanged. —  Swell Foop
  • Also, add in the possibility that the Sun-Times reference to Rahm calling Blago was the same metonymy that Axelrod got in trouble for earlier: representing a contact with a Blago representative as a contact with Blago. —  Firedoglake
  • The technique that McCloud uses in the second panel is called metonymy -- creating the meaning for something by showing a related thing. —  COMIXTALK
  • It is metonymy, in that a scream is closely associated with physical pain (in this case murder). —  COMIXTALK
  • The rampant abuses of metonymy and synechdoche in modern political thought polemically raise a particular kind of legitimacy, a specific type of the constitution, and one of the loci of the political to the status and the dignity of the genus, in a way that de-legitimizes their rivals. —  TELOSscope: The Telos Press blog
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Late Latin metōnymia, from Greek metōnumiā : meta-, meta- + onuma, name; see nŏ̄-men- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French métonymic = Spanish metonimía. = Italian metonimia, metonomia, from Late Latin metonymia, from Greek μετωνυμία, a change of name (in rhetoric, as defined), from μετά, after, + ἄνομα, Æolic ο̆νυμα, name: see onym.
 

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/mɛˈtɑnɪmi/
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