7. Metonymy. Besides the figures of likeness and unlikeness, there are others of quite a different kind. Metonymy consists in the substitution for the thing itself of something closely associated with it, as the sign or symbol for the thing symbolized, the cause for the effect, the instrument for the user of it, the container for the thing contained, the material for the thing made of it, etc.
Examples: He is a slave to the cup. Strike for your altars and your fires. The kettle boils, He rose and addressed the chair. The palace should not scorn the cottage. The watched pot never boils. The red coats turned and fled. Iron bailed and lead rained upon the enemy. The pen is mightier than the sword.
8. Synecdoche. There is a special kind of metonymy which is given the dignity of a separate name. It is the substitution of the part for the whole or the whole for the part. The value of it consists in putting forward the thing best known, the thing that will appeal most powerfully to the thought and feeling.
Examples: Come and trip it as you go, on the light fantastic toe. American commerce is carried in British bottoms. He bought a hundred head of cattle. It is a village of five hundred chimneys. He cried, “A sail, a sail!” The busy fingers toll on.
Exercise.
Indicate the figure of speech used in each of the following sentences:
1. Come, seeling Night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful Day.
2. The coat does not make the man.
3. From two hundred observatories in Europe and America, the glorious artillery of science nightly assaults the skies.
4. The lamp is burning.