GC: n
S: CLAOSU (last access: 9 December 2025); BBC (last access: 9 December 2025).
N: 1. The term “metaphor” dates back to the late 15th century. It derives from Old French metaphore (13th century) and directly from Latin metaphora, which in turn comes from the Greek metaphorá, meaning «transfer» or «carrying over». This Greek term originates from the verb metaphérein, meaning «to transfer, carry over, change, or use a word in an unusual sense», formed by meta («over, across») and phérein («to carry, bear»). The root phérein traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root bher- meaning «to carry» or «to bear».
2. metaphor, figure of speech that implies comparison between two unlike entities, as distinguished from simile, an explicit comparison signalled by the words like or as.
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The distinction is not simple. A metaphor makes a qualitative leap from a reasonable, perhaps prosaic, comparison to an identification or fusion of two objects, the intention being to create one new entity that partakes of the characteristics of both. Many critics regard the making of metaphors as a system of thought antedating or bypassing logic.
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Metaphor is the fundamental language of poetry, although it is common on all levels and in all kinds of language.
3. Writing Styles: metaphor.
- A figure of speech in which a name or a descriptive term is applied to a person or object to which it is not literally applicable, thus implying comparison. (Hartmann and Stork, Dictionary on Language and Linguistics. New-York; John Wiley and sons, 1972, p. 140).
- A metaphor is a similarity or comparison without an “as” or “like”, an analogy created by substituting word for word, image for image or sign for sign. (Wilden, A., The Rules are no Game. London, New-York; Routledge and Kegan Paul Inc., 1987, p. 198).
4. Collocations:
- adj. appropriate, apt, striking | mixed.
- verb + noun (metaphor): use. He uses the metaphor of fire to represent hatred.
- noun (metaphor) + verb: describe sth, represent sth.
- prep. metaphor for: ‘This vale of tears’ is a metaphor for the human condition. | metaphor of: the metaphor of life as a journey.
5. Cultural interrelation: In the novel Invisible Man (1952), for example, Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) extends the metaphor of invisibility to describe how black men and women are often overlooked in American society, pushed to the margins and into the shadows.
S: 1. Etymonline (last access: 12 December 2025). 2. EncBrit (last access: 12 December 2025). 3. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 12 December 2025). 4. OCD (last access: 12 December 2025). 5. CLAOSU (last access: 12 December 2025); GR (last access: 12 December 2025).
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