Metalepsis (from ) is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context. Examples "I've got to catch the worm tomorrow." "The early bird catches the worm" is a common maxim, advising an early start on the day to achieve success. The subject, by referring to this maxim, is compared to the bird; tomorrow, the speaker will awake early in order to achieve success. In Icelandic literature The word twikent (twice-kenned) is used for once-removed metalepsis involving kennings. If a kenning has more than three elements, it is said to be rekit ("extended"). Kennings of up to seven elements are recorded in skaldic verse. Snorri Sturluson characterises five-element kennings as an acceptable license but cautions against more extreme constructions: Níunda er þat at reka til hinnar fimtu kenningar, er ór ættum er ef lengra er rekit; en þótt þat finnisk í fornskálda verka, þá látum vér þat nú ónýtt. "The ninth [license] is extending a kenning to the fifth determinant, but it is out of proportion if it is extended further. Even if it can be found in the works of ancient poets, we no longer tolerate it." — Snorri Sturluson nausta blakks hlé-mána gífrs drífu gim-slöngvir "fire-brandisher of blizzard of ogress of protection-moon of steed of boat-shed" — from the Hafgerðingadrápa, by Þórður Sjáreksson (this is the longest kenning found in skaldic poetry; it simply means "warrior" ) Other uses For the nature of metalepsis is that it is an intermediate step, as it were, to that which is metaphorically expressed, signifying nothing in itself, but affording a passage to something. It is a trope that we give the impression of being acquainted with rather than one that we actually ever need. — Quintilian But the sense is much altered & the hearer's conceit strangely entangled by the figure Metalepsis, which I call the farfet, as when we had rather fetch a word a great way off than to use one nearer hand to express the matter as well and plainer. — George Puttenham In a metalepsis, a word is substituted metonymically for a word in a previous trope, so that a metalepsis can be called, maddeningly but accurately, a metonymy of a metonymy. — Harold Bloom Narratology In narratology (and specifically in the theories of Gérard Genette), a paradoxical transgression of the boundaries between narrative levels or