Metaphor: A Definition

'A metaphor is an implied analogy that imaginatively identifies one object (or person) with another and ascribes to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second,' (from A Handbook to Literature, ed. C. Hugh Holman, The Odyssey Press). A good political example is Ronald Reagan's famous sound bite: 'welfare queens.' This combination of words or frames, 'welfare' and 'queens' implies a little story that says that everyone on welfare is acting like a queen, at the taxpayer's expense. For more, see the sections on metaphor in Selected Sources and Links

See also: Some Ways Metaphors Appear in Sentences