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metonymy. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
From Late Latin metonymia, from Ancient Greek μετωνυμίᾱ (metōnumíā, “change of name”), from μετά (metá, “other”) + ὄνομα (ónoma, “name”).
Pronunciation
Noun
Examples
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- The White House released its official report today.
- “The White House” for “The presidential administration”
- The Crown has enacted a new social security policy.
- “The Crown” for “The government of the United Kingdom”
- Put it on the plastic – material “plastic” for object credit card
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metonymy (countable and uncountable, plural metonymies)
- (rhetoric) The use of a single characteristic or part of an object, concept or phenomenon to identify the entire object, concept, phenomenon or a related object.
- Hypernyms: trope, figure of speech
- Hyponym: synecdoche
- Coordinate term: metaphor
1835, L Langley, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, , Doncaster: Printed by C. White, Baxter-Gate, →OCLC, page 7:Metonymy does new names impose,
And things for things by near relation shews.
1891 September, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, →OCLC, page 279:...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.
- (countable) A metonym.
Coordinate terms
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