metaphor
[met-uh-fawr, -fer]
- a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”Compare mixed metaphor, simile(def 1).
- something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.
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Origin of metaphor
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for metaphorically
Contemporary Examples
Like all good scripture, Me & Dog can be read literally as well as metaphorically.
We are all hired as the heads of the Urban Division metaphorically, because black people should be in charge of black stuff.
So Hamas returned to the old familiar terrain of launching missiles—a way to shake the ground, but metaphorically and physically.
Unruly Places is all about going off the map, metaphorically and physically.
Discovering Underground Labyrinths, Remote Cities, and More of the World’s Lost PlacesNina Strochlic
July 8, 2014
Paul and Cuccinelli did not stand alone, physically or metaphorically.
Historical Examples
We are always, metaphorically, going up or coming down in a balloon.
The Roof of FranceMatilda Betham-Edwards
Then he gathered his opinions in a bunch, and metaphorically hurled them at her.
The Law-BreakersRidgwell Cullum
Purity only metaphorically a type of sinlessness.sinlessness.
Modern Painters Volume II (of V)John Ruskin
Oh, metaphorically, I mean—there's a break in the continuity.
She was nearly in despair, and, metaphorically speaking, went on her knees to me.
A Modern TomboyL. T. Meade
metaphor
- a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action that it does not literally denote in order to imply a resemblance, for example he is a lion in battleCompare simile
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Word Origin
C16: from Latin, from Greek metaphora, from metapherein to transfer, from meta- + pherein to bear
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for metaphorically
metaphor
n.
late 15c., from Middle French metaphore (Old French metafore, 13c.), and directly from Latin metaphora, from Greek metaphora "a transfer," especially of the sense of one word to a different word, literally "a carrying over," from metapherein "transfer, carry over; change, alter; to use a word in a strange sense," from meta- "over, across" (see meta-) + pherein "to carry, bear" (see infer).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
metaphor
The comparison of one thing to another without the use of like or as: “A man is but a weak reed”; “The road was a ribbon of moonlight.” Metaphors are common in literature and expansive speech. (Compare simile.)
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.