metáfora

Forms

metáfora f (plural metáforas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin metaphora, from Ancient Greek μεταφορά (metaphorá, “transfer, transport; metaphor”).^[2][3][4][1] The Greek noun comes from μεταφέρω (metaphérō, “to carry over, use figuratively”), formed of μετά (metá) and φέρω (phérō, “to carry”).^[3][5][6] In Latin it was a rhetorical term, the native word being translātiō.^[7][8]

The same word is Portuguese metáfora, Catalan metàfora, French métaphore and Italian metafora.^[9][10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is a Spanish Bible of about 1400, which speaks of one declarante los sueños & notificante las metaforas “interpreting dreams and making known the figures”.^[11] Enrique de Villena uses methafora in 1417.^[11][12] The BDELC dates the word to the second quarter of the 15th century, and the DCECH to about 1440, in Alfonso de la Torre, Pérez de Guzmán and Santillana.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the Greek of Isocrates and Aristotle metaphorá was already the rhetorical term, beside the general senses “transference” and “haulage”.^[13] In 15th-century Spanish it was a term of poetics: Ferrand Manuel de Lando speaks of metáforas delgadas “subtle metaphors”.^[11] Corominas notes that the word was still missing from Cristóbal de las Casas's dictionary in 1570.^[2] In the Americas it is recorded from 1546, in Santo Domingo, of the metaphors of Ovid.^[14] The Academy's dictionary of 1899 defined it as the trope that transfers the literal sense of words to a figurative one by a tacit comparison.^[15] The 2001 edition added a broader sense, the use of a word for something it does not literally name, to suggest a comparison.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – first record, in a Spanish Bible.^[11]
• 1417 – Enrique de Villena uses methafora.^[11][12]
• 1438 – the adjective metafórico is recorded.^[3]
• c. 1440 – the DCECH's first record, in Alfonso de la Torre.^[2]
• 1546 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Greek and defines the trope.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. (rhetoric) A metaphor: the transfer of a word from its literal sense to a figurative one by a tacit comparison, as in un mar de dudas “a sea of doubts”.^[4][1]
2. The use of a word or expression for something it does not literally denote, to suggest a comparison and make it easier to understand.^[16]

Word family

• metafórico
• metaforizar

Related words

• anáfora
• periferia
• Latin metaphora
• English metaphor

Usage notes

A metáfora continuada is an allegory (alegoría), a passage with a literal and a figurative sense.^[4] In the Dominican Republic de metáfora means “occasionally”.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 632
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. metáfora
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. metáfora
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 459
6. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 424
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. metáfora
10. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. metàfora
11. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. metáfora
12. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. metáfora
13. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. μεταφορά
14. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. metáfora
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 655
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. metáfora
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. metáfora