Metonymy
metonymy (of metônumia, "renaming") is a figure of by which one is called starting from a word indicating another concept. There is thus a relation obliged like, for example, the cause for the effect, the part for the whole, or the container for the contents.
The metonymy replaces a word A by a word (or a short expression) b:
- A "often includes" B or the opposite (the grammairiens call it then "synecdoque"), but it can y have that a logical relationship between A and B.
- A is not clarified (it disappeared: it is replaced by B)
- in the same way, the relation between A and B are not clarified
- moreover, it there no function word announcing the operation.
The metonymy is very frequent, because it is "economic": it allows an expression short and striking. It is even one in the most current ways in which the words take new directions. As soon as the new direction was well established, one cannot of course speak more about rhetorical figure: for example, a word as current as glass (within the meaning of container) has a metonymic origin.
See too
