Metonymy

1. A figure of speech that replaces the name of one thing with the name of something else closely associated (Baldick 154).

2. The literal term for one thing is applied to another with which it has become closely associated because of a recurrent relation in common experience (Abrams 103).

3. Metonymy comes frome the Greek word metonymia which means change name (Hawkes 4).

4. Synecdoche is an important kind of metonymy, which the name of a part is substituted for that of a whole, or vice versa (Baldick 154).

Examples

1. The White House can be substituted for the President (Hawkes 4). 2. The Crown for the Monarch (Hawkes 4). 3. The press for journalism (Baldick 154).

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H., and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Boston: Rosenburg, 2005.

Baldick, Chris. Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Hawkes, Terence. Metaphor. London: Methuen, 1972.