synecdoche

noun
/sɪˈnɛk.də.ki/

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin synecdochē, from Ancient Greek συνεκδοχή (sunekdokhḗ, “receiving together”) from σύν (sún, “with”) + ἐκ (ek, “out of”) + δέχεσθαι (dékhesthai, “to accept”), this last element related to δοκέω (dokéō, “to think, suppose, seem”).

  1. derived from συνεκδοχή
  2. borrowed from synecdochē

Definitions

  1. A figure of speech that uses the name of a part of something to represent the whole, or…

    A figure of speech that uses the name of a part of something to represent the whole, or the whole to represent a part, or a specific kind or instance to represent the general category, or the general category to represent a specific kind or instance, or the constituent material to represent the thing made from it.

    • Synecdoche the whole for part will take, Or part for whole, just for the metre's sake.
    • "Holocaust" can become a tired synecdoche for war crimes in general.
    • Perhaps being in a touring band was, to Yorke, a synecdoche for the modern condition: disorientation, alienation, rootlessness, exhaustion, lack of control, occasional derangement, constant motion.
  2. The use of this figure of speech.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for synecdoche. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA