Expert: Ted Nesbitt - 11/25/2003

Question
please explain the difference between metonymy and synecdoche.

thanks,
jan

Answer
Jan:

The two are hard to distinguish, because synecdoche is a kind of metonymy.

Metonymy is a figure of speech in which the name of something is used to refer to something that that name stands for.  An example is "These lands belong to the crown."  Obviously, the "crown" doesn't own these lands.  The writer is using "crown" as a metonymy -- he actually means "to the king" or "to the country ruled by the king."

Synecdoche is a form of metonymy, but it differs slightly in that it "specializes," usually in reference to a "number."  When we say, "President Bush won only the states colored in blue on the map, but he is the president of the fifty," the word "fifty" is a synecdoche standing for the entire United States.  Another example is "The actor walked the boards."  In this instance, "boards" is just a part or section of the entire thing -- the "stage" upon which the actor appears.

The easiest way to single out a synecdoche from the general class of metonymy is to see if the word represents a total, of which it is just a part or an individual number.

Here are the definitions of the two terms from the University of Kentucky:

Metonymy: substitution of one word for another which it suggests.
*He is a man of the cloth.
*The pen is mightier than the sword.
*By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread.

Synecdoche: understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of metonymy.)
*Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6
*I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
*The U.S. won three gold medals. (Instead of, The members of the U.S. boxing team won three gold medals.)

Let's take the first example of metonymy, "He is a man of the cloth."  The writer is actually saying that he is a man of religion, such as a minister.  "Cloth" is used to stand for "religion."  There is NO separation into "parts of the whole" in this figure of speech.

However, in the T. S. Eliot example under synecdoche, the "ragged claws" is a part of the whole.  The actual reference is to a crab.  Thus the word "claws" represents the whole crab.

If you can see the image as part of a whole, then it is synecdoche.

If the image is actually a whole thing and represents another whole thing, it is metonymy.

You can find many other examples and definitions online by using this search engine:

http://www.google.com

In the search box, type these words:  metonymy poetry terminology

Do the same thing for synecdoche.

You'll find hundreds of examples and definitions.

Ted Nesbitt

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