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metaphorical

   Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
met·a·phor  (mt-fôr, -fr)
n.
1. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in "a sea of troubles" or "All the world's a stage" Shakespeare.
2. One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol: "Hollywood has always been an irresistible, prefabricated metaphor for the crass, the materialistic, the shallow, and the craven" Neal Gabler.
[Middle English methaphor, from Old French metaphore, from Latin metaphora, from Greek, transference, metaphor, from metapherein, to transfer : meta-, meta- + pherein, to carry; see bher-1 in Indo-European roots.]
meta·phoric (-fôrk, -fr-), meta·phori·cal adj.
meta·phori·cal·ly adv.
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Adj.1.metaphorical - expressing one thing in terms normally denoting another; "a metaphorical expression"; "metaphoric language"
metaphoric
figurative, nonliteral - (used of the meanings of words or text) not literal; using figures of speech; "figurative language"
metaphorical
adjective figurative, symbolic, emblematic, allegorical, emblematical, tropical Rhetoric
Translations

metaphorical [mɛtəˈfɔrɪkl] adj → metafórico
metaphorical [mɛtəˈfɔrɪkl] metaphor adj → metaphorisch


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Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or newly-coined, or lengthened, or contracted, or altered.
The Poetics of Aristotle by Aristotle View in context
They were, moreover, in the present case, embittered with certain circumstances, which being mixed with sweeter ingredients, tended altogether to compose a draught that might be termed bitter-sweet; than which, as nothing can be more disagreeable to the palate, so nothing, in the metaphorical sense, can be so injurious to the mind.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Fielding, Henry View in context
But it was worked out on conscious artistic principles, carefully followed; and when chanted, as it was meant to be, to the harp it possessed much power and even beauty of a vigorous sort, to which the pictorial and metaphorical wealth of the Anglo-Saxon poetic vocabulary largely contributed.
A History of English Literature by Fletcher, Robert Huntington View in context
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