μεταφορά

Forms

μετᾰφορᾱ́ (metaphorā́) f (genitive μετᾰφορᾶς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek μεταφέρω (metaphérō, “to carry over, transfer”).^[1][2][3] Latin metaphora was borrowed from it.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest use is rhetorical: Isocrates, in the Evagoras, speaks of metaphors (in the plural), words transferred to a new sense.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Aristotle made it a central term of the Poetics and the Rhetoric, and it remained the name of the figure in Epicurus, Demetrius' treatise on style and Plutarch.^[5][3] Aeschines uses it disparagingly, of a twisting of someone's words.^[3]

The literal sense of transfer appears later in the record: a comic poet uses it for a transference, a papyrus of the 1st century BC for the transfer of ownership, Hero and the papyri for the transport of goods such as wine, and Plutarch for a change of phase of the moon.^[5][2]

Medieval vernacular Greek used it for moving or transfer and for change, and also had a form μετάφορα (metáfora) taken from Italian metafora.^[7] Modern Greek μεταφορά (metaforá) is a learned word meaning transport and transfer; its sense “metaphor” is the ancient one.^[8][9]

Timeline

• 5th–4th century BC – Isocrates uses it of metaphors.^[5][6][10]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle treats metaphor in the Poetics and the Rhetoric.^[5][3][10]
• 4th century BC – Aeschines uses it of a distortion of words.^[3][10]
• 1st century BC – A papyrus uses it of the transfer of ownership.^[5]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it of a change of phase of the moon.^[5][2][10]
• 2nd century AD – A papyrus uses it of the transport of wine.^[5]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts use it for moving and for change.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Transference; of property, transfer of ownership.^[5]
2. Transport, haulage.^[5]
3. A change; a phase of the moon.^[5][2]
4. (rhetoric) Transference of a word to a new sense, a metaphor.^[5][3]
5. (pejorative) A distortion of someone's words.^[3]

Related words

• μεταφέρω (metaphérō)
• Latin metaphora

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
3. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
8. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
10. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge