Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or of the nature of metonymy; used by way of metonymy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Used by way of metonymy; using the name of one thing for that of another with which it is closely associated.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, or relating to, a word or phrase that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object.
  • noun A metonym.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective using the name of one thing for that of another with which it is closely associated

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek μετωνυμικός (metōnumikos, "of or like metonymy"), from μετωνυμία (metōnumia, "change of name"), from μετά (meta, "other") + ὄνυμα (onuma, "name").

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Examples

  • Your search for "metonymic" meanings instead of taking things first at face value is particularly distressing to me.

    Never judge a book by its nom de plume 2008

  • In Morte D'Urban, we can see the extended use Powers makes of the priesthood as a kind of metonymic device to explore the themes of community, America, the spiritual/moral life.

    The Priestly Comedy of J. F. Powers Gordon, Mary 1982

  • From this we can identify that time is constructed in two ways -- one as metonymic (the correlation of events) and one as metaphoric (from an understanding of motion and resources).

    Jason Derr: Seeing The Future In 3-D: Incarnation And The Sputnik Moment Jason Derr 2011

  • From this we can identify that time is constructed in two ways -- one as metonymic (the correlation of events) and one as metaphoric (from an understanding of motion and resources).

    Jason Derr: Seeing The Future In 3-D: Incarnation And The Sputnik Moment Jason Derr 2011

  • Via Kittler once more, the Faustian (Goethean) bargain — trading one's mute soul for the voice of poetry — comes true yet again in an oralized alphabetic writing resembling nothing so much as the metonymic skids of the unconscious.

    Phonemanography: Romantic to Victorian 2008

  • Not all figuration is metaphoric though; in metonymy, the process of interpretation is not based on resemblances but on other forms of association -- the association of a crown with a king, for example, such that we use the artefact as a metonymic stand-in for the person.

    Notes on Strange Fiction: Narrative's Function (1) Hal Duncan 2008

  • Not all figuration is metaphoric though; in metonymy, the process of interpretation is not based on resemblances but on other forms of association -- the association of a crown with a king, for example, such that we use the artefact as a metonymic stand-in for the person.

    Archive 2008-08-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • In its metonymic relation to the season, however, Shelley's wind, with all its surface effects, is also the recessional index of a further unseen presence.

    Phonemanography: Romantic to Victorian 2008

  • On the other hand, the combination of all these parallel, metonymic stories that accumulate and flesh out one another, creates a subtext whose increasing scope rivals the actual text, illuminating the work with a unique poetics.

    Judith Hendel. 2009

  • ‘Code is Law’ is also a metonymic inference referencing a paradigm.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Lessig’s “Code” at 10: 2009

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