A metaphorOrigin: 1525–35; < Latin metaphora < Greek metaphorá a transfer, akin to metaphérein to transfer. See meta-, -phore is a figure of speech in which two "essentially unlike things" are shown to have a type of resemblance or create a new image. The similarities between the objects being compared may be implied rather than directly stated. The literary critic and rhetorician, I. A. Richards, divides a metaphor into two parts: the vehicle and the tenor.I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1936), 119–127. Example: "Fog comes on little cat feet"—Carl Sandburg In this example, “little cat feet” is the vehicle that clarifies the tenor, “fog.” A comparison between the vehicle and tenor (also called the teritium comparitionis) is implicit: fog creeps in silently like a cat.
A metaphorOrigin: 1525–35; < Latin metaphora < Greek metaphorá a transfer, akin to metaphérein to transfer. See meta-, -phore is a figure of speech in which two "essentially unlike things" are shown to have a type of resemblance or create a new image. The similarities between the objects being compared may be implied rather than directly stated. The literary critic and rhetorician, I. A. Richards, divides a metaphor into two parts: the vehicle and the tenor.I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1936), 119–127. Example: "Fog comes on little cat feet"—Carl Sandburg In this example, “little cat feet” is the vehicle that clarifies the tenor, “fog.” A comparison between the vehicle and tenor (also called the teritium comparitionis) is implicit: fog creeps in silently like a cat.