metnymía

Metnymía, often rendered as metonymy in English, is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with it rather than by its own name. This substitution is based on contiguity or relatedness in place, property, or context, rather than on a direct comparison of similarity as in metaphor.

Etymology and scope: The term derives from Greek metônymía (μετωνυμία), from meta- meaning change or another and onoma meaning name. In rhetoric, metnymía is used to elide a term by invoking a related term that stands in for the intended referent. Some writers treat synecdoche as a subset of metonymy (part-for-whole or whole-for-part), while others distinguish the two more strictly as separate figures.

Typical patterns and examples: Common metonymic substitutions use institutions, places, or objects closely tied to a broader concept. Examples include referring to the presidency as “the White House” or speaking of the film industry as “Hollywood.” Another familiar case is using an object associated with a person to represent that person, such as “the keyboard” referring to a computer user or “the Crown” standing for a monarch. Metonymy can also involve deictic or ceremonial terms like “the bench” for judges or “the street” for the people who inhabit it.

Usage and significance: Metnymía is widespread in literature, journalism, and everyday speech. It enhances concision and vividness by leveraging shared associations, and it plays a key role in cross-linguistic metaphorical thought and cognitive linguistics as a basic mechanism for conceptual mapping.