Look up: metaphor

1. 
   Metaphor
   a word which does not precisely or literally refer to the entity to which it is supposed to refer. Metaphors are sometimes thought to exist only in works of literature, but is actually prevalent in language in general. One engages in the metaphorical use of language, for instance, when one says that one is feeling 'down'.
   Found on http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/glossary/glo
   
   
2. 
   metaphor
   [Noun] A way of describing something as something else to suggest that it has the qualities of the other thing.
   Example: The writer used the metaphor ‘a crust of bread’ when writing about how little he was paid each week.
   Found on http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/glossary
   
   
3. 
   Metaphor
   implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it.
   *Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Shakespeare, Macbeth
   *. . . while he learned the language (that meager and fragile thread . . . by which the little surface corners and edges of men's secret and solitary lives may be joined for an instant now and then before sinking back into the darkness. . . ) Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!
   *From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. W. Churchill
   Found on http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/rhetoric.
   
   
4. 
   Metaphor
   An imaginative comparison between two actions/objects etc which is not literally applicable.
   An example of metaphor occurs in In Memory of W.B.Yeats by W.H.Auden:
   'The provinces of his body revolted,
   The squares of his mind were empty,'
   Obviously Yeats' body does not have provinces, nor does his mind have squares but the comparison helps to bring the poem to life. Metaphor is similar to simile but omits words such as 'like' or 'as'.
   Some poems feature an extended metaphor e.g. Crossing the Bar by Tennyson.
   I.A. Richards coined the terms 'tenor' and 'vehicle' to distinguish the 2 parts of a metaphor. The 'tenor' is an idea with which a second idea (the vehicle) is identified. In Macbeth's famous soliloquy there is the line: 'life's but a walking shadow' - where 'life' is the 'tenor' and 'walking shadow' is the 'vehicle'.
   See also dead metaphor and mixed metaphor.
   Found on http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/glossary_of
   
   
5. 
   metaphor
   [n] - a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity
   Found on http://www.webdictionary.co.uk/definitio
   
   
6. 
   Metaphor
   a figure of speech in which one thing is described in terms of another
   Found on http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/eng.htm
   
   
7. 
   Metaphor
   a comparison but this time one thing becomes another in every sense, except the literal. There is no 'like' or 'as' acting as links. e.g. The man was a mountain. The wind was a knife, cutting through outer garments to attack the defenceless body.
   Found on http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~media/hrc_sty
   
   
8. 
   metaphor
   in metaphorical usage, expressions are used in a way that appears literally false. For example, using the word boiling to describe water which is simply too hot for comfort.
   Found on http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/clmt/
   
   
9. 
   Metaphor
   The process of thinking about one situation or phenomenon as something else, i.e., stories, parables, and analogies.
   Found on http://www.mentalcombat.co.uk/Free+Downl
   
   
10. 
    Metaphor
    where the writer writes about something as if it were really something else. Fowler describes it as an 'imaginative substitution'. For example: he is an ass; love's meteor. A poisoned apple passed along from generation to generation (McGough).
    Found on http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary
    
    
11. 
    Metaphor
    Met'a·phor (mĕt'ȧ*fẽr) noun [ French métaphore , Latin metaphora , from Greek metafora` , from metafe`rein to carry over, transfer; meta` beyond, over + fe`rein to bring, bear.] (Rhet.) The transference of the relation between one set of objects to another set for the purpose of brief explanation; a compressed sim ...
    Found on http://www.encyclo.co.uk/webster/M/56
    
    
12. 
    metaphor
    The application of a concept to which it is not literally applicable but which suggests a resemblance and invites comparison. Metaphors as figures of speech are a common literary device but in the history of medicine, metaphors lend a philosophical aura. Medical metaphors were widespread in ancient literature; the description of a sick body was oft ...
    Found on http://www.mondofacto.com/facts/dictiona
    
    
13. 
    metaphor
    noun a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity
    Found on http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?
    
    
14. 
    Metaphor
    `Metaphor` (from the Greek: `metapherin`) is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: `The `[first subject]` is a `[second subject]`.` More generally, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope that describes a first subject as `being` or `equal to` a second subject in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subje...
    Found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor
    
    
15. 
    Metaphor
    • (n.) The transference of the relation between one set of objects to another set for the purpose of brief explanation; a compressed simile; e. g., the ship plows the sea.
    Found on http://thinkexist.com/dictionary/meaning
    
    
16. 
    metaphor
    figure of speech that implies comparison between two unlike entities, as distinguished from simile, an explicit comparison signalled by the words ... [13 related articles]
    Found on http://www.britannica.com/eb/a-z/m/79
    
    
17. 
    metaphor
    metaphor 1. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another; therefore, making an implicit comparison. 2. One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol. 'Hollywood has always been an irresistible, prefabricated metaphor for the crass, the materialistic, the shallow, and the craven.'...
    Found on http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/inf
    
    
18. 
    metaphor
    a comparison that is made literally, either by a verb (for example, John Keats' 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' from his 'Ode on a Grecian Urn') or, less obviously, by a combination of adjective and noun, noun and verb, etc. (for example, Shakespeare's sonnet on the 'the marriage of true minds'), but in any case without pointing out a similarity by...
    Found on http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display_r
    
    
19. 
    metaphor
    An implied comparison. A writer makes a comparison between two unlike things and are therefore not usually compared. In metaphors words like 'like' or 'as' are never used. Examples: 'fountain of youth', 'heart of stone'
    Found on http://www.menrath-online.de/glossaryeng
    
    
20. 
    metaphor
    metaphor [Gr.,=transfer], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which one class of things is referred to as if it belonged to another class. Whereas a simile states that A is like B, a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A. Some metaphors are explicit, like Shakespeare's line from As You L...
    Found on http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A08328
    
    
21. 
    Metaphor
    Rhetorical figure transposing a term from its original concept to another and similar one. In its origin, all language was metaphoric; so was poetry. Metaphor is a short fable (Vico). -- L.V.
    Found on http://www.ditext.com/runes/m.html