On Synecdoche and

Metonymy
When you're left to your own
rhetorical devices.
Last Updated: 2 Aug 2019

What to Know
Synecdoche is a figure of speech referring to when a part of something is used to
refer to the whole, such as in the phrase "all hands on deck," where "hands" are
people. It's easy to confuse with metonymy, which refers to using one thing to
describe something related to it, such as referring to the Queen as simply "the
crown," or a sports team as simply the city they are from as in "Boston led by 2
points."

The terms metonymy and synecdoche refer to two similar figures of speech

used as rhetorical devices. (They're easy to confuse, so feel free to read
this as many times as you need.)

'Synecdoche' is when a part of something is used to refer to the

whole. 'Metonymy' is when something is used to represent
something related to it.
What is Synecdoche
Synecdoche  refers to the practice of using a part of something to stand in
for the whole thing. Two common examples from slang are the use
of wheels to refer to an automobile (“she showed off her new wheels”)
or threads to refer to clothing.
A classic example of synecdoche is the use of the term hands to mean
“workers” (as in “all hands on deck”), or the noun sails to mean “ships.”
Synecdoche is also sometimes used in the names of sports teams (the
White Sox, the Blue Jackets).
What is Metonymy
Metonymy  refers to the use of the name of one thing to represent
something related to it, such as crown to represent “king or queen”
or White House or Oval Office to represent “President.” When you say “a
bunch of suits were in the elevator” when you are talking about
businesspeople, that is an example of metonymy, because you're using
the common wardrobe of executives as shorthand for people in that
occupation.
It’s metonymy when you use a person’s name to refer to the works by
that person, as when you say “I had to read Hemingway for a class”
when you really mean “I had to read a work by Hemingway for a class.”
Another straightforward example is when you use a city’s name to refer
to its team, as when you say “Houston was ahead by six points.”

Some examples are so common as to become a regular part of the

lexicon. For example, the use of press to mean “journalists” dates to the
17th century and occurs in the First Amendment (“Congress shall make
no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”). This use,
of course, attributes journalists with the name of the device used for
printing newspapers and other circulations.
In similar classic examples of metonymy, an occupation is identified by
the tools used to carry it out. A sportswriter might say that a team’s bats
went into a slump, when the writer really means that the hitters in the
lineup went into the slump. Sometimes metonymy is used to make a
name catchier than the item it replaces, like when surf and turf, using
two rhyming terms that allude to the sea and land, is used for to a dish
combining seafood and beef.
Like many terms used in rhetoric, both synecdoche and metonymy derive
from Greek. The syn- in synecdoche means "with, along with" (much like
as in synonym) and ekdochē means "sense,
interpretation." Metonymy meanwhile, combines the Greek meta (“among,
with, after,” the same root found in metaphor) with onyma, meaning
“name” or “word.”

Synecdoche and metonymy are both figures of speech. They were

parts of Ancient Greek rhetoric and their names have been passed
down through Latin to the English language. The concepts are
very similar, and in some cases overlapping, which causes a lot of
confusion. Worse, there is a lot of conflicting information out
there regarding the difference.

A metonym is a figure of speech where a thing is referred to by the

name of something that is connected to it. For example, it’s
common to refer to news media, from the people who report on it
to the people who gather it, as ‘the press’. This is short for
‘printing press’, which used to be used to make newspapers, the
major source of news at the time. Military officers are sometimes
referred to as ‘brass’ because brass is a common alloy in insignias
and buttons. Both of those are used to signal rank among military
officers.

It is also incredibly common to refer to bodies of government as

the place where the government is run. In the United States,
‘Washington D.C.’, or just ‘Washington’, are both used to mean
the general government, while ‘the White House’ means the
president and other members of the executive branch. In the
United Kingdom, ‘Buckingham’ refers to the royal family while ‘10
Downing Street’ means the Prime Minister’s staff and
‘Westminster’ means the British Parliament.
Synecdoche is a type of metonymy. It refers specifically to when a
part of something is used to represent the whole or vice versa. For
instance, ‘we have hungry mouths to feed’. In the phrase, ‘mouths’
is used to represent the hungry people and it is synecdoche
because mouths are part of people. In Canada, one dollar coins
are known as ‘loonies’, because the coin has an image of a loon on
it, so the image represents the whole. Other common types of
synecdoche refer to the material the object is made of. Spectacles,
meaning the object used to correct faulty sight, are now known as
glasses because their lenses were made of glass.
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It can also mean when the whole of something is used to talk

about just a part. Police officers can be referred to as ‘the law’, for
example. Another common phrase is ‘people,’ or the term for a
group of persons, to refer to a single person. You can see an
example of this in the sentence, “He’s good people.”

Synecdoche can also have multiple layers. For instance, a piano

can be called ‘ivories’. This is because it is being called by a term
for the piano keys. That itself is a synecdoche: keys are called that
because they are commonly made of ivory. Thus, calling a piano
‘ivories’ is what is known as a complex synecdoche.

Some people make a distinction between metonymy and

synecdoche. The most common one found is that synecdoche is
used with a part of the thing in question and metonymy is used
with something that is connected but not a part. This is
technically correct. Since synecdoche is a type of metonymy, it is
fair to say that all types of metonymy that are not synecdoche are
metonymy. However, synecdoche is still a type of metonymy, so
anything that is synecdoche is also metonymy.

To summarize, metonymy is when an object or concept is called

by the name of something related to the object. Synecdoche is a
specific type of metonymy where the related thing is part of the
object in question. Some people say that synecdoche is completely
separated from metonymy, but it is actually part of metonymy.

Read more: Difference Between Synecdoche and Metonymy |

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