metonymy

plural metonymies

1. countablerhetoricuncountableThe use of a single characteristic or part of an object, concept or phenomenon to identify the entire object, concept, phenomenon or a related object.

   Metonymy does new names impose, And things for things by near relation shews.

   1835, L[arret] Langley, “[The Seven Tropes.] Metonymy.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 7

   2 more examples

   ...the principle of metonymy is simply to substitute for the plain name of a thing a name or phrase based on something connected with it.

   1891 September 28, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, →OCLC, page 279

   THE KEY CONCEPT IS “metonymy.” This is the act of a word or phrase associated with a concept coming to represent the entirety of said concept. Generally, this means an extension of the original meaning. For example, “city hall” no longer means just the structure, but also the lawmakers who inhabit that structure. In the same way, “dish” started as the physical plate a meal is served on, before people started using it to represent the meal itself.

   2015 January 16, Rick Paulas, “The Linguistics of Tragedy”, in Pacific Standard, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2025

2. countableA metonym.

   The escape from sameness to contiguity is particularly striking in such cases as Goldstein's patient who would answer with a metonymy when asked to repeat a given word and, for instance, would say glass for window and heaven for God.

   1987 [1956], Roman Jakobson, edited by Krystyna Pomorska Stephen Rudy, Language in Literature, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, →ISBN, page 105