In rhetoric, antonomasia is a kind of metonymy in which an epithet or phrase takes the place of a proper name, such as "the little corporal" for Napoleon I, or conversely the use of a proper name as an archetypal name, to express a generic idea. A frequent instance of antonomasia in the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance was the use of the term "the Philosopher" to refer to Aristotle.

Stylistically, such epithets may be used for elegant variation to reduce repetition of names in phrases. The word comes from the Greek ἀντονομασία, antonomasia, itself from the verb ἀντονομάζειν, antonomazein 'to name differently'.[1][2][3]

Opposite examples

See "archetypal name" for examples of the opposite kind of antonomasia.

One common example in French is the word for fox: the Latin-derived French: goupil was replaced by French: renard, from Renart, the fox hero of the Roman de Renart; originally German Reinhard.

Examples

Persons

Fictional characters

Works of art

Places

See also

References

  1. ↑ ἀντονομασία,ἀντονομάζειν. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  2. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.
  3. 1 2 3 4 One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Antonomasia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 151.
  4. ↑ Zezima, Katie (27 November 2003). "A Job Transformed: Paper-Pusher to Junkyard Dog". The New York Times.
  5. ↑ "A major fight looms for Beacon Hill's 'Prince of Darkness' - the Boston Globe". The Boston Globe.

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Antonomasia" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.