Dead metaphor - Fossilized metaphor
This article is part of the Figures of Speech course. You may choose to follow it in a structured way, or read each item separately.
- Figures of comparison
- Simile
- says one thing is like another (and extended simile)
- Metaphor
- makes a hidden or covert comparison (and extended metaphor)
- Dead and fossilized metaphors
- those which have become commonplace
- Personification
- compares something not human to a person
- Conceit
- makes a very far-fetched or unlikely striking comparison
- Symbols
- are conventional comparisons more generally agreed by a culture
- Allegory
- tells a story in terms of a different world
- Metonymy - synecdoche
- use part of something to stand for the whole thing, or vice-versa
- Figures of meaning
- Figures of construction
- Figures of sound patterning
- Miscellaneous Figures
Metaphors in principle are a way of making language more vivid. (They are among the most important figures of speech.) Sometimes they are used so often that their effect is lost. Then they are called dead metaphors. (Dead is of course a metaphor itself. If you are an English teacher of a certain age, you may think it is a dead metaphor; but if you are a student coming across it for the first time, you may find it a lively and exciting one.)
When a dead metaphor becomes worse than dead, it may be a cliché.
In the final stage, much of our everyday language consists of fossilised metaphors - words that people once invented to be vivid and describe new things, but are now the standard word for something. When someone drives a car, for example, it is rarely realised that 'driving' here is akin to 'driving' on a golf course or tennis court. Originally one 'drove' animals, such as horses in carriages, by striking them.