"metonym" meaning in English

See metonym in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈmɛ.tə.nɪm/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-metonym.wav [Southern-England] Forms: metonyms [plural]
Etymology: Back-formation from metonymy. Etymology templates: {{back-form|en|metonymy}} Back-formation from metonymy Head templates: {{en-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. Categories (topical): Grammar Translations (word that names an object from a single characteristic of it): փոխանուն (pʻoxanun) (Armenian), 轉喻 (Chinese Mandarin), 转喻 (zhuǎnyù) (Chinese Mandarin), metonym [neuter] (Danish), metoniem (Dutch), metonyymi (Finnish), métonyme [masculine] (French), Metonym [neuter] (German), 換喩語 (kan'yugo) (alt: かんゆご) (Japanese), метоним (metonim) [masculine] (Macedonian), metonym [neuter] (Norwegian Bokmål), metônimo [feminine] (Portuguese), metonímia [feminine] (Portuguese), метони́м (metoním) [masculine] (Russian), metónimo [masculine] (Spanish), metonym [common-gender] (Swedish), hoán dụ (Vietnamese)
    Sense id: en-metonym-en-noun-k~AngqMk Topics: grammar, human-sciences, linguistics, sciences Disambiguation of 'word that names an object from a single characteristic of it': 88 12
  2. (by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas. Tags: broadly
    Sense id: en-metonym-en-noun-0RSYChJm Categories (other): English back-formations, English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English terms suffixed with -nym, English terms suffixed with -onym Disambiguation of English back-formations: 24 76 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 23 77 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 39 61 Disambiguation of English terms suffixed with -nym: 20 80 Disambiguation of English terms suffixed with -onym: 21 79
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: synonym Hyponyms: synecdoche [rhetoric] Derived forms: metonymous, metonymic, metonymically, metonymy Related terms: demonym, mononym, meronym, metanym [taxonomy, biology, natural-sciences]

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for metonym meaning in English (7.5kB)

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "metonymous"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "metonymic"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "metonymically"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "metonymy"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "metonymy"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from metonymy",
      "name": "back-form"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from metonymy.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "metonyms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "metonym (plural metonyms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyponyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "tags": [
        "rhetoric"
      ],
      "word": "synecdoche"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "demonym"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "mononym"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "meronym"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "topics": [
        "taxonomy",
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ],
      "word": "metanym"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Grammar",
          "orig": "en:Grammar",
          "parents": [
            "Linguistics",
            "Language",
            "Social sciences",
            "Communication",
            "Sciences",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Calling a government a \"city hall\" is using a metonym.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1891 September 19, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, →OCLC, pages 279–280",
          "text": "...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.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 November, Melanie Schulze Tanielian, “Feeding the city: The Beirut Municipality and the politics of food during World War I”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 46, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 737–758",
          "text": "She not only outlines the devastating effects of seferberlik but also highlights the changing meaning of this term - as it acquired a civilian dimension in its Arabic rendition (safar barlik) - and its potency as a metonym for the war as a whole.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy."
      ],
      "id": "en-metonym-en-noun-k~AngqMk",
      "links": [
        [
          "grammar",
          "grammar"
        ],
        [
          "metonymy",
          "metonymy"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(grammar) A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "grammar",
        "human-sciences",
        "linguistics",
        "sciences"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "hy",
          "lang": "Armenian",
          "roman": "pʻoxanun",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "word": "փոխանուն"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "word": "轉喻"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "zhuǎnyù",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "word": "转喻"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "metonym"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "word": "metoniem"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "word": "metonyymi"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "métonyme"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "Metonym"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "alt": "かんゆご",
          "code": "ja",
          "lang": "Japanese",
          "roman": "kan'yugo",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "word": "換喩語"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "mk",
          "lang": "Macedonian",
          "roman": "metonim",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "метоним"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "metonym"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "metônimo"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "metonímia"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "metoním",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "метони́м"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "metónimo"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "metonym"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "88 12",
          "code": "vi",
          "lang": "Vietnamese",
          "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
          "word": "hoán dụ"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "24 76",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English back-formations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "23 77",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "39 61",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "20 80",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -nym",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "21 79",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -onym",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "See also: symbol, model, microcosm, archetype, exemplar, proxy"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Geraldine Lawless, Modernity's Metonyms: Figuring Time in Nineteenth-century Spanish Stories, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, page 155",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas."
      ],
      "id": "en-metonym-en-noun-0RSYChJm",
      "links": [
        [
          "concept",
          "concept"
        ],
        [
          "idea",
          "idea"
        ],
        [
          "typify",
          "typify"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɛ.tə.nɪm/"
    },
    {
      "homophone": "metanym"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-metonym.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-metonym.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-metonym.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-metonym.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-metonym.wav.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Southern-England"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (Southern England)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "synonym"
    }
  ],
  "word": "metonym"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English 3-syllable words",
    "English back-formations",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms suffixed with -nym",
    "English terms suffixed with -onym",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English terms with homophones"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "metonymous"
    },
    {
      "word": "metonymic"
    },
    {
      "word": "metonymically"
    },
    {
      "word": "metonymy"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "metonymy"
      },
      "expansion": "Back-formation from metonymy",
      "name": "back-form"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Back-formation from metonymy.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "metonyms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "metonym (plural metonyms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyponyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "rhetoric"
      ],
      "word": "synecdoche"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "demonym"
    },
    {
      "word": "mononym"
    },
    {
      "word": "meronym"
    },
    {
      "topics": [
        "taxonomy",
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
      ],
      "word": "metanym"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "en:Grammar"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Calling a government a \"city hall\" is using a metonym.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1891 September 19, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, →OCLC, pages 279–280",
          "text": "...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.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 November, Melanie Schulze Tanielian, “Feeding the city: The Beirut Municipality and the politics of food during World War I”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 46, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 737–758",
          "text": "She not only outlines the devastating effects of seferberlik but also highlights the changing meaning of this term - as it acquired a civilian dimension in its Arabic rendition (safar barlik) - and its potency as a metonym for the war as a whole.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "grammar",
          "grammar"
        ],
        [
          "metonymy",
          "metonymy"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(grammar) A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "grammar",
        "human-sciences",
        "linguistics",
        "sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "See also: symbol, model, microcosm, archetype, exemplar, proxy"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Geraldine Lawless, Modernity's Metonyms: Figuring Time in Nineteenth-century Spanish Stories, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, page 155",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "concept",
          "concept"
        ],
        [
          "idea",
          "idea"
        ],
        [
          "typify",
          "typify"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɛ.tə.nɪm/"
    },
    {
      "homophone": "metanym"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-metonym.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-metonym.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-metonym.wav.mp3",
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      "tags": [
        "Southern-England"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (Southern England)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "synonym"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "hy",
      "lang": "Armenian",
      "roman": "pʻoxanun",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "word": "փոխանուն"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "word": "轉喻"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "zhuǎnyù",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "word": "转喻"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "metonym"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "word": "metoniem"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "word": "metonyymi"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "métonyme"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Metonym"
    },
    {
      "alt": "かんゆご",
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "roman": "kan'yugo",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "word": "換喩語"
    },
    {
      "code": "mk",
      "lang": "Macedonian",
      "roman": "metonim",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "метоним"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "metonym"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "metônimo"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "metonímia"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "metoním",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "метони́м"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "metónimo"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "metonym"
    },
    {
      "code": "vi",
      "lang": "Vietnamese",
      "sense": "word that names an object from a single characteristic of it",
      "word": "hoán dụ"
    }
  ],
  "word": "metonym"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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