metonymy

1. 1.

   substituting the name of an attribute or feature for the name of the thing itself (as in `they counted heads')

   Broadertrope

   Narrowermetalepsis

Other forms of metonymy

plural

metonymies·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about metonymy

What does metonymy mean?

metonymy means "substituting the name of an attribute or feature for the name of the thing itself (as in `they counted heads')".

How many syllables are in metonymy?

metonymy has 4 syllables: me-to-ny-my. The stress falls on "to".

Is metonymy a common word?

metonymy is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.