Metaphor is the concept of understanding one thing in terms of another. A
metaphor is a
figure of speech that constructs an
analogy between two things or ideas; the analogy is conveyed by the use of a metaphorical word in place of some other word. For example: "Her eyes were glistening jewels".
Metaphor is or was also occasionally used to denote
rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance (e.g.,
antithesis,
hyperbole,
metonymy and
simile, which are then all considered types of metaphor).
Aristotle used both this sense and the regular, current sense above.
[3]
The word
metaphor derives from the 16th century
Old French métaphore, in turn from the
Latin metaphora, "carrying over", which is the
latinisation of the
Greek μεταφορά (
metaphorá), “transfer”,
[4] from μεταφέρω (
metaphero), “to carry over”, “to transfer”,
[5] itself a compound of μετά (
meta), “between”
[6] + φέρω (
pherō), “to bear”, “to carry