metonym

Etymology

Back-formation from metonymy.

noun

1. (grammar) A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object; a word used in metonymy.
   Calling a government a "city hall" is using a metonym.
   ...to say that "New York was thrown into a state of great excitement," when we mean the inhabitants of New York, is technically to use the metonym of putting "the container for the thing contained." September 1891, William Minto, “Practical talks on writing English”, in Theodor Flood, editor, The Chautauquan, volume 13, →OCLC, pages 279–280
   She not only outlines the devastating effects of seferberlik but also highlights the changing meaning of this term - as it acquired a civilian dimension in its Arabic rendition (safar barlik) - and its potency as a metonym for the war as a whole. 2014 November, Melanie Schulze Tanielian, “Feeding the city: The Beirut Municipality and the politics of food during World War I”, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 46, number 4, →JSTOR, pages 737–758
2. (by extension) A concept, idea, or word used to represent, typify, or stand in for a broader set of ideas.
   See also: symbol, model, microcosm, archetype, exemplar, proxy
   Chapter 1, using the railway as a metonym, explored the relationship between past and present, and argued that diachronic, or historical, time was dissolved in the proliferation of present moments, or synchronic time. 2011, Geraldine Lawless, Modernity's Metonyms: Figuring Time in Nineteenth-century Spanish Stories, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, page 155