A list of metaphors in the English language organised by type. A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels". Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance. In this broader sense, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile would all be considered types of metaphor. Aristotle used both this sense and the regular, current sense above. With metaphor, unlike analogy, specific interpretations are not given explicitly.
Animals
- 800 lb gorilla
- Albatross (metaphor)
- Belling the cat
- Blind men and an elephant
- Boiling frog
- Butterfly effect
- Camel's nose
- Chicken or the egg
- Dead cat bounce
- Duck trick
- Elephant in the room
- Beating a dead horse
- Four Asian Tigers
- His Eye is on the Sparrow
- Jumping the gun
- Letting the cat out of the bag
- Mama grizzly
- Monkey see, monkey do
- Ostrich effect
- Reverse ferret
- Seeing pink elephants
- The Sheep and the Goats
- Snake venom
- Spherical cow
- Turkeys voting for Christmas
- Turtles all the way down
- White elephant
- Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
- You have two cows
Body parts
- Broken heart
- Cold feet
- Heart (symbol)
Nautical
- Taken aback, on a square-pingas the sails were 'taken aback' when the wind was blowing on the wrong side of the sails causing a dangerous situation. Later used to indicate a difficult or unexpected situation.
- Batten down the hatches
- Clear the decks to get everything out of the way as a warship went into action.
- Show someone the ropes to show or explain to someone how to do a task or operation. Taken from the use of ropes to orient and adjust the sails.
- Sail close to the wind is to operate hazardously on very slim margins, usually applied in a financial sense. Derived from the technique of sailing close to the direction of the oncoming wind.
- Loaded to the gunwales
- Back and fill
- On one's beam ends
- Awash
- Adrift
- A wide berth
- Flagship
- Unmoored
- Nail one's colours to the mast
- Flying the flag
- Plain sailing
- With flying colours - the colours was the national flag flown at sea during battle, a ship would surrender by lowering the colours and the term is now used to indicate a triumphant victory or win.
- In the doldrums
- All hands to the pumps
- Weathering a storm
- A different tack
- Swinging the lead is to avoid duty by feigning illness or injury, original a confusion between Swing the leg which related to the way dogs can run on three legs to gain sympathy and the sailor's term heaving the lead which was to take soundings.
- Left high and dry
- Three sheets to the wind, meaning "staggering drunk," refers to a ship whose sheets have come loose, causing the sails to flap uncontrolled and the ship to meander at the mercy of the elements. Also, "Three sheets in the wind, unsteady from drink."
- Sun over the yardarm: This phrase is widely used, both afloat and ashore, to indicate that the time of day has been reached at which it is acceptable to have lunch or (more commonly) to have an alcoholic beverage.
- "Take soundings": In suspected shallow waters, a crew member may have the task of repeatedly throwing into the water a lead line, or piece of lead tied to a string knotted every fathom, for the purpose of estimating the depth of the sea. This saying the nautical equivalent of "Take the lay of the land": see how things are going, or see what people think about a proposed course of action.
- "By and large" comes from a term for sailing a ship slightly off of the wind [1]
- "To the bitter end" may have originally referred to a rope fastened to the bitt, a post attached on the deck of a ship.[2], although this etymology has been disputed [3]
Objects
- Big red button
- Brass ring
- Brass monkey
- Bucket brigade
- Chain reaction
- Chinese fire drill
- Cultural mosaic
- Domino effect
- Don't judge a book by its cover
- Holy Grail
- Inverted pyramid
- Law of the instrument
- Melting pot
- Rosetta Stone
- Silver bullet
- Snowball effect
- Soapbox
- Zanata Stone
- A big chair
People
- Aunt Sally
- Cassandra (metaphor)
- Copernican Revolution (metaphor)
- Hobson's choice
- Judgment of Solomon
- Mary Sue
- Procrustes
- Whipping boy
- Aunt Flow
- Benedict Arnold
Places
- Crossing the Rubicon
- wikt:crossroads, a decision point; a turning point or opportunity to change direction, course, or goal.
- Fork in the road (metaphor)
- wikt:grey area, an area or topic that is not one thing or the other, or where the border between two things is fuzzy. See also wikt:fall between two stools
- Ground zero
- Mother lode
- Plateau effect
- Podunk
- Point of no return
- Slippery slope
- Walk to Canossa
Science
Richard Honeck described three forms of scientific metaphors: "mixed scientific metaphor, the scientific metaphor theme, and the scientific metaphor that redefines a concept from a theory."
- 1959 Valency (linguistics), by Lucien Tesnière, from Valence (chemistry) (1789, by William Higgins)
- 1973 Inductor, by Deleuze and Guattari, from Electromagnetic induction (1831, by Michael Faraday)
- 1980 Rhizome (philosophy), by Deleuze and Guattari, from botanical rhizome
Sport
- Carnoustie effect
- Doing a Leeds
- Face-off
- False start
- Jump the Gun
- Media scrum
- Own goal
- Pole position
- Political football
Various
- Aesopian language
- Apollo archetype
- Bad apples
- Bad apples excuse
- Battle of egos
- Betamax
- BÄ«ja
- Black-and-white dualism
- Bootstrapping
- Cabin fever
- Cherry picking (fallacy)
- China Syndrome
- City on a Hill
- Closeted
- Coming out
- Drunkard's search
- Enchanted loom
- Endianness
- Fatted calf
- Few bad apples
- Five wisdoms
- Gates of horn and ivory
- Gold in the mine
- Gordian Knot
- Greek to me
- Green shoots
- Hue and cry
- Hungry ghost
- Indra's net
- Iron (metaphor)
- Jungle
- KÅan
- Late bloomer
- List of scientific metaphors
- McNamara fallacy
- Mindstream
- Moral compass
- Musical chairs
- The Myth of Sisyphus
- Neurathian bootstrap
- Nutshell
- One bad apple
- Panopticon gaze
- Pear-shaped
- Post turtle
- The price of milk
- Ignoratio elenchi
- Invincible ignorance fallacy
- Red pill and blue pill
- Representation (systemics)
- Roof of the World
- Salad days
- Salt and Light
- Ship of state
- Son of a gun
- Survival of the fittest
- Teaching grandmother to suck eggs
- Technical debt
- Touchstone (metaphor)
- Tragedy of the commons
- Tunnel vision
- Unmarked grave
- Yin and yang
- New Testament military metaphors
- New Testament athletic metaphors
- Baseball metaphors for sex
War
- Catch-22 (logic)
- Dry powder
- Fog of war
- No-win situation
- Pyrrhic victory
- Saber noise
- Shareholder rights plan
- Shooting the messenger
- Smoking gun
- Texas sharpshooter fallacy
- War chest
- Win-win game
Lists
- List of political metaphors
- Category:Political metaphors referring to people
References
- Further reading
- Isil, Olivia A. (1966). When a loose cannon flogs a dead horse there's the devil to pay: seafaring words in everyday speech. Camden ME: International Marine. ISBNÂ 978-0-07-032877-8.Â
- Miller, Charles A. (2003). Ship of state: the nautical metaphors of Thomas Jefferson : with numerous examples by other writers from classical antiquity to the present. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-2516-6.Â
- Milligan, Christopher S.; Smith, David C. (1997). "Language from the Sea: Discovering the Meaning and Origin of Nautical Metaphors". English Quarterly. 28 (4): 36â€"40.Â
- Naval Air Station Jacksonville (1942). "Service Jargon". 9780070328778A-V(S) Indoctrination School. Department of the Navy. Retrieved June 17, 2010.Â