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Definition 2024


Metonym

Metonym

See also: metonym

German

Noun

Metonym n (genitive Metonymes or Metonyms, plural Metonyme or Metonyma)

  1. (grammar) metonym

Declension

Related terms

metonym

metonym

See also: Metonym

English

Noun

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 "city hall" is using a metonym.
    • 1891 September 1, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, OCLC 752442901, 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."
  2. (by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas.
    • 2011, Geraldine Lawless, Modernity's Metonyms: Figuring Time in Nineteenth-century Spanish Stories, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, ISBN 1611480477, 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.

Hyponyms

See also

Translations

See also


Danish

Etymology

Back-formation from metonymi.

Noun

metonym n (singular definite metonymet, plural indefinite metonymer)

  1. (grammar) metonym

Inflection