metonym

Back-formation from metonymy.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛ.tə.nɪm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Homophone: metanym

metonym (plural metonyms)

1. (grammar) A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy.

   Calling a government a "city hall" is using a metonym.

   • 1891 September, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, →OCLC, pages 279–280:

     ...to say that "New York was thrown into a state of great excitement," when we mean the inhabitants of New York, is technically to use the metonym of putting "the container for the thing contained."

   • 2014 November, Melanie Schulze Tanielian, “Feeding the city: The Beirut Municipality and the politics of food during World War I”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 46, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 737–758:

     She not only outlines the devastating effects of seferberlik but also highlights the changing meaning of this term - as it acquired a civilian dimension in its Arabic rendition (safar barlik) - and its potency as a metonym for the war as a whole.

2. (by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas.

   See also: symbol, model, microcosm, archetype, exemplar, proxy

   • 2011, Geraldine Lawless, Modernity's Metonyms: Figuring Time in Nineteenth-century Spanish Stories, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, →ISBN, page 155:

     Chapter 1, using the railway as a metonym, explored the relationship between past and present, and argued that diachronic, or historical, time was dissolved in the proliferation of present moments, or synchronic time.

A metonym may be exemplified by a single word or by a phrase equally. An example of the metonymic phrase is evidenced in the sentence "Major Taylor had to battle discrimination both on and off the bike", wherein the phrases "on the bike" and "off the bike" are metonymic. It would be absurd to think that Major Taylor was doing anything while on his bike, other than trying to win whichever race he was involved in. The suggestion, then, that Taylor battled discrimination "on the bike" clearly means that he had to battle discrimination "in the pursuit of his athletic career", and so is an example of metonymy.

• synonym

• synecdoche (rhetoric)

• metonymous
• metonymic
• metonymically
• metonymy

• demonym
• mononym
• meronym (some meronyms are also used as metonyms; example: wheels/vehicle)
• metanym (taxonomy)
• Category:English metonyms

Back-formation from metonymi.

metonym n (singular definite metonymet, plural indefinite metonymer)

1. (grammar) metonym
   • 2011, Jan Krag Jacobsen, 29 spørgsmål, Samfundslitteratur, →ISBN, page 124:

     Den lille trailer […] blev […] brugt som et metonym for sort arbejde.

     The little trailer was used as a metonym for undeclared work.

   • 2010, Krydsfelt Grundbog i Dansk, Gyldendal Uddannelse, →ISBN, page 133:

     I Herman Bangs Stuk (1887) er den arkitektoniske stuk blot et udsnit af tidens pyntesyge overfladeliv bliver et metonym på samtiden.

     In Herman Bang's Stuk (1887), the architectural stucco is only a slice of the gaudy surface life of the time becomes a metonym of the time.

   • 2011, Thomas Wiben Jensen, Kognition og konstruktion: to tendenser i humaniora og den offentlige debat, Samfundslitteratur, →ISBN, page 250:

     ... en tendens til at bruge hjernen som et metonym for ens personlighed, ...

     ... a tendency to use the brain as a metonym for one's personality, ...

• IPA^(key): /mɛtɔˈnyːm/, /mɛtʊˈnyːm/

metonym c

1. (linguistics) metonym