Metaphor

Noun

 * 1)  The use of a word or phrase to refer to something that it isn’t, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described, but in the case of English without the words like or as, which would imply a simile.
 * 2) * What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and; anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions &mdash; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins. &mdash; Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, 1870, translated by Daniel Beazeale, 1979.
 * 3)  The word or phrase used in this way.  An implied comparison.

Hypernyms

 * figure of speech

Derived terms

 * dead metaphor
 * extended metaphor
 * malaphor
 * metaphorical
 * metaphorical extension
 * metaphoricity
 * stale metaphor

Adjectives for Metaphor
far-fetched; abundant; developed; suggestive; consistent; bucolic; striking.

Verbs for Metaphor
abound with—s; apply—; employ—; —allegorizes; —alludes to; —collates; —colors; —compares; —contrasts; —depicts; —identifies; —illuminates; —illustrates; —likens; —parallels; —personifies; —portrays.

Thesaurus
accordance, agent, agreement, alikeness, allegory, alliance, alliteration, allusion, alternate, alternative, anacoluthon, anadiplosis, analogue, analogy, anaphora, anastrophe, antiphrasis, antithesis, antonomasia, aping, apophasis, aporia, aposiopesis, apostrophe, approach, approximation, assimilation, backup, balancing, catachresis, change, changeling, chiasmus, circumlocution, climax, closeness, community, comparability, comparative anatomy, comparative degree, comparative grammar, comparative judgment, comparative linguistics, comparative literature, comparative method, compare, comparing, comparison, conformity, confrontation, confrontment, contrast, contrastiveness, conversion, copy, copying, correlation, correspondence, counterfeit, deputy, distinction, distinctiveness, double, dummy, ecphonesis, emphasis, equal, equivalent, ersatz, exchange, exclamation, fake, figure of speech, fill-in, gemination, ghost, ghostwriter, hypallage, hyperbaton, hyperbole, identity, image, imagery, imitation, inversion, irony, likeness, likening, litotes, locum tenens, makeshift, malapropism, matching, meiosis, metonymy, mimicking, nearness, next best thing, onomatopoeia, opposing, opposition, oxymoron, parallelism, paregmenon, parenthesis, parity, periphrasis, personification, personnel, phony, pinch hitter, pleonasm, preterition, prolepsis, proportion, proxy, reference, regression, relation, relief, repetition, replacement, representative, resemblance, reserves, ringer, sameness, sarcasm, second string, secondary, semblance, sign, similarity, simile, similitude, simulation, spares, spoonerism, stand-in, sub, substituent, substitute, substitution, succedaneum, superseder, supplanter, surrogate, syllepsis, symbol, symbolism, symploce, synecdoche, third string, token, trope, trope of comparison, understudy, utility player, vicar, vice-president, vice-regent, weighing, zeugma

Etymology
From metaphora: from  μεταφορά: from μεταφέρω: from μετά: + φέρω:

Translations

 * Arabic: مجاز
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin:
 * Croatian:
 * Czech:
 * Dutch:, ,
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * German:
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:


 * Korean: 은유 (eunyu); 암유 (amyu)
 * Latvian:
 * Norwegian: metafor/
 * Persian: استعاره
 * Polish: ,
 * Portuguese:
 * Russian:
 * Spanish: metáforo
 * Swedish:
 * Turkish:


 * Arabic: مجاز, استعارة
 * Catalan:
 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin:, ,  ,  比擬,  比拟,  象徵,  象征
 * Croatian:
 * Dutch:
 * Esperanto:
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * German:


 * Greek:
 * Italian:
 * Japanese:, 隠喩,
 * Latvian: metaforia
 * Norwegian: metafor/
 * Polish: ,
 * Portuguese:
 * Russian:
 * Spanish: metáforo
 * Swedish:
 * Turkish:


 * : metafora, analogi, perumpamaan