metaphor meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

metaphor

noun

UK /ˈmɛt.ə.fə/ · CA, US /ˈmɛt.ə.foɹ/

Etymology From Middle French métaphore, from Latin metaphora, from Ancient Greek μεταφορά (metaphorá), from μεταφέρω (metaphérō, “to transfer, apply”), from μετά (metá, “with, across, after”) + φέρω (phérō, “to bear, carry”).

Rhetoric The use of a word, phrase, concept, or set of concepts to refer to something other than its literal meaning, invoking an implicit similarity between the thing described and what is denoted by the word, etc., that is used.

The next group of computational approaches to metaphor assume that metaphor is basically a hidden analogy.2013, Eileen Cornell Way, Knowledge Representation and Metaphor, page 157:

Rhetoric A word or phrase used in such implied comparison.

A Metaphor, in place of proper words, Resemblance puts; and dress to speech affords.1835, L[arret] Langley, “[The Seven Tropes.] Metaphor.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 3:
A Metaphor may be changed into a Simile, and also into plain language, containing neither metaphor nor simile. Thus: Metaphor. — Idleness is the rust of the soul. Simile. — As rust is to iron, so is idleness to the soul, taking away its strength and power of resistance. Plain. — Idleness takes away from the soul its strength and power of resistance.1874, John Seely Hart, First Lessons in Composition, page 92:

3 more examples

1979, Daniel Breazeale (translator), Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense [1873, Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn], in Philosophy and Truth, page 84, quoted in 1998, Ian Markham, Truth and the Reality of God: An Essay in Natural Theology, page 103, 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, seems to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; 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.
The metaphor is both the subtitle to a paper that Kevin Nadal, professor of psychology at John Jay College, wrote about the impact of microaggressions on L.G.B.T.Q. youth, and the title of another paper on the health implications of black respectability politics by Hedwig Lee, professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, and Margaret Takako Hicken, research assistant professor at the University of Michigan.2020 March 3, Hahna Yoon, “How to Respond to Microaggressions”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2020:
To torture the metaphor, though, they’re sitting at a table outside the Nazi bar; their friends are there, they’re having a good time, maybe they hear a slur emanate from the window from time to time.2025 May 23, Charlie Warzel, “What Are People Still Doing on X?”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 24 May 2025:

Computing, Engineering, Graphical user interface, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences The use of an everyday object or concept to represent an underlying facet of the computer and thus aid users in performing tasks.

desktop metaphor, wastebasket metaphor

Derived terms: conceptual metaphor, dead metaphor, extended metaphor, malaphor, metaphoreme, metaphoric, metaphorical, metaphorical extension, metaphorically, metaphorician, metaphoricity, metaphorics, metaphorism, metaphorist, metaphorization, metaphorize, metaphorology, mixed metaphor, stale metaphor, supermetaphor
Related terms: analogy, idiom, metonymy, metonym, simile, skeuomorphism, allegory
Hypernyms: figure of speech, trope

metaphor

verb

To use a metaphor.

To describe by means of a metaphor.