Metonymy is a figure of speech which substitutes one term for another. For example, Madison Avenue is a street in New York City, but is often used to refer to the entire advertising industry because numerous advertising firms are located there. Likewise, "the pen is mightier than the sword" equates the "pen" with diplomacy or thinking and the "sword" with violence or military power. Metonymy is often confused with metaphor because they both equate terms that are not the same. In the case of metonymy, however, the two terms are related (Washington and government), whereas a metaphor often pairs very dissimilar concepts (a cat and fog).
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In english there are many key concepts and terms that are crucial for students to know and understand. Often it can be hard to determine what the most important english concepts and terms are, and even once you’ve identified them you still need to understand what they mean. To help you learn and understand key english terms and concepts, we’ve identified some of the most important ones and provided detailed definitions for them, written and compiled by Chegg experts.