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Fifty Keels Ploughed The Deep

A metaphor is a figure of speech concisely expressed by comparing two things, saying that one is the other: All the world's a stage.

A metonymy is a figure of speech used when a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept: there is nothing press-like about reporters or crown-like about a monarch, but the press and the crown are both common metonyms.

A synecdoche (pronounced sinNECK-doh-kee) is a specific kind of metonymy, where a specific part of something is used to refer to the whole: 20,000 hungry mouths to feed.

A good example of a single sentence that displays synecdoche, metaphor, and metonymy is: Fifty keels ploughed the deep.
  • Keels is a synecdoche as it identifies the whole (the ship) by referring to a particular part (of the ship),
  • Ploughed is a metaphor as it substitutes the concept of ploughing a field for moving through the ocean; and
  • The deep is a metonym, as depth is an attribute associated with the ocean.

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