0 a word or expression that refers to something using the name of one of its qualities or features:
"Wheels" for "car" is a metonym.
Today, the term "rice and beans" is used as a metonym for basic needs of food.
Metonyms do not point anywhere but to the thing of which they are a part.
Supporting a faintly hopeless football team is turned into a metonym for life's uphill struggle.
These perennial illnesses of the motherland were metonyms for the social crises of the body-politic.
In the first case, a new metonym can have the benefit of doubt with critics of economic man and gain some initial sympathy.
A new metonym may appeal to critics of economic man, whilst potentially repelling its sympathizers.
In a metonym, a subject or category is described by one or a set of its features.
