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Encyclopedia > Dead metaphor

A dead metaphor is a metaphor that through overuse has lost figurative value. Examples of dead metaphors include: Look up metaphor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

In many cases the speaker does not understand the literal meaning of a metaphor, but uses it nevertheless. The user understands the phrase as a complete semantic unit rather than as a metaphor, i.e. the entire phrase carries a meaning distinct from the sum of the meanings of its individual components. Other uses: Foothills are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevated land at the base of a mountain range. ... The eye of a needle. ... The separation of powers (or trias politica, a term coined by French political Enlightenment thinker Montesquieu) is a model for the governance of democratic states. ... A windfall gain is any type of income that is unexpected. ... Son of a gun is a slang term present in American and British English. ...


For instance, horses once played an important part in human activities, but nowadays few people in the West have experience of them. Despite this, modern English is riddled with equine metaphors: "holding the reins of power", "trot it out", "take the bit between one's teeth", "be saddled with", "put him through his paces", "ride roughshod over", "flogging a dead horse", "give the whip hand", "look a gift horse in the mouth", "long in the tooth", "put out to grass", "getting his oats" and so on. These may be considered dead metaphors as the historical equine-related meaning is generally not appreciated by the contemporary user.


External links

The University of Queensland (UQ) is the longest-established university in the state of Queensland, Australia, and a member of Australias Group of Eight. ...

References

  • Page 237 of Master the AP English Language & Composition Test, a book by Laurie Rozakis

  Results from FactBites:
 
Metaphor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2303 words)
An active metaphor is one which by contrast to a dead metaphor, is not part of daily language and is noticeable as a metaphor.
Metaphor and simile are two of the best known tropes and are often mentioned together as examples of rhetorical figures.
A final difference is that in practice, often-used metaphors can "wear away" into dead metaphors as listeners come to learn metaphorical meanings by rote rather than making sense of seemingly nonsensical assertions, whereas a simile, because it explicitly calls attention to the act of comparison, is not as susceptible to the loss of metaphoricity.
Metaphor (676 words)
Many consider metaphor to be at the heart of poetry (or even to define in part what it means to be human): the figure of speech that links dissimilar objects or concepts, establishing a non-deductive relationship.
Metaphor is one of the most common figures of speech and many words have their origin in metaphor.
Understanding, for example, is a dead metaphor, having its origins in the idea that "standing under" something was akin to having a good grasp of it (another, slightly less dead metaphor) or knowing it thoroughly.
  More results at FactBites »

 

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