Metonymとは 意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• IPA: /ˈmɛ.tə.nɪm/
• Homophone: metanym

名詞

metonym (plural metonyms)

1. (grammar) A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy.

   Calling a government a "city hall" is using a metonym.

   • 1891 September, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, →OCLC, pages 279–280:

     ...to say that "New York was thrown into a state of great excitement," when we mean the inhabitants of New York, is technically to use the metonym of putting "the container for the thing contained."

   • 2014 November, Melanie Schulze Tanielian, “Feeding the city: The Beirut Municipality and the politics of food during World War I”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 46, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 737–758:

     She not only outlines the devastating effects of seferberlik but also highlights the changing meaning of this term - as it acquired a civilian dimension in its Arabic rendition (safar barlik) - and its potency as a metonym for the war as a whole.

2. (by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas.

   See also: symbol, model, microcosm, archetype, exemplar, proxy

   • 2011, Geraldine Lawless, Modernity's Metonyms: Figuring Time in Nineteenth-century Spanish Stories, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, →ISBN, page 155:

     Chapter 1, using the railway as a metonym, explored the relationship between past and present, and argued that diachronic, or historical, time was dissolved in the proliferation of present moments, or synchronic time.

使用する際の注意点

A metonym may be exemplified by a single word or by a phrase equally. An example of the metonymic phrase is evidenced in the sentence "Major Taylor had to battle discrimination both on and off the bike", wherein the phrases "on the bike" and "off the bike" are metonymic. It would be absurd to think that Major Taylor was doing anything while on his bike, other than trying to win whichever race he was involved in. The suggestion, then, that Taylor battled discrimination "on the bike" clearly means that he had to battle discrimination "in the pursuit of his athletic career", and so is an example of metonymy.

同意語

• synonym

下位語

• synecdoche (rhetoric)

派生語

参考

• demonym
• mononym
• meronym (some meronyms are also used as metonyms; example: wheels/vehicle)
• metanym (taxonomy)
• troponym
• Category:English metonyms