Other forms: metaphors
A metaphor calls one thing another in order to show what it is like. Life is a journey. Time is money.
It differs from a simile only in leaving out the word like, which sounds like a small thing and is not, since a metaphor asserts the identity rather than the comparison. A dead metaphor is one nobody notices any more, and the leg of a table is one. A mixed metaphor combines two incompatible images and is usually funny, which is why editors hunt them.
1nounmetaphorA figure of speech describing one thing as another to suggest a likeness.
“The whole poem turns on a single metaphor.”
A metaphor is a carrying across: Greek meta, across, plus pherō, to bear. The word performs the thing it names, moving a meaning from one place to another.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰer-
Ancient Greek
μεταφορά
Latin
metaphora
Middle French
métaphore
English, today
metaphor
Built from
From Middle French métaphore, from Latin metaphora, from Ancient Greek μεταφορά, from μεταφέρω (“to transfer, apply”), from μετά (“with, across, after”) + φέρω (“to bear, carry”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA