metaphora

Forms

metaphora f (genitive metaphorae); first declension^[1] It is often spelled metafora, rarely methaphora; the accusative is metaphoran as well as metaphoram.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μεταφορά (metaphorá, “transference”),^[3][4][1] from μεταφέρω (metaphérō, “to transfer, apply”), from μετά (metá, “with, across, after”) and φέρω (phérō, “to bear, carry”).^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Quintilian on,^[2] who uses it for a metaphor and calls it a shorter simile (“metaphora brevior est similitudo”).^[2] Festus quotes Verrius for it as the Greek word for what the Romans call tralatio.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It was the rhetoricians' Greek term for the figure that the Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero call translatio (Cicero: verbi translatio), and the pure Latin word remained in use beside it.^[2][3][4] Fronto lists it among the tropes, Charisius calls it the general trope of which all the others are kinds, and Sacerdos notes that some call catachresis a metaphor.^[2] Isidore of Seville defines it as a borrowed transfer of a word, with examples such as “fluctuare segetes”, “the crops wave”.^[6] It remained the word in Ecclesiastical Latin,^[7] and English took it over in the late 15th century, from French and directly from Latin.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian discusses the metaphor at length.^[2][4][5]
• 100–170 AD – Fronto counts it among the tropes.^[2][5]
• 2nd half of the 2nd century AD – Festus quotes Verrius on it.^[2][5]
• c. 362 AD – Charisius calls it the general trope.^[2][5]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville defines it with examples.^[6][5]
• late 15th century – English borrows it as metaphor.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (rhetoric) A metaphor, the use of a word in a transferred or figurative sense.^[3][4][2]

Word family

• metaphoricus

Usage notes

The native Latin term is translatio.^[3][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com