Polysemy vs Metonymy - What's the difference?
polysemy | metonymy |
(semantics) The ability of words, signs and symbols to have multiple meanings.
The use of a single characteristic or name of an object to identify an entire object or related object.
(countable) A metonym.
{{examples-right, caption=metonymy , examples=*The White House released its official report today. — "The White House" for "The presidential administration"
* The Crown has enacted a new social security policy. — "The Crown" for "The government of the United Kingdom".
* A crowd of fifty heads — where "head" stands for person.
* Put it on the plastic — material (plastic) for object (credit card), width=60%}}
As nouns the difference between polysemy and metonymy
is that polysemy is the ability of words, signs and symbols to have multiple meanings while metonymy is the use of a single characteristic or name of an object to identify an entire object or related object.polysemy
English
(wikipedia polysemy)Noun
(-)- [...] polysemy , which is the greedy habit some words have of taking more than one meaning for themselves. ,
speech at TED
.
Antonyms
* monosemySee also
* homonymymetonymy
English
(wikipedia metonymy)Noun
* The Crown has enacted a new social security policy. — "The Crown" for "The government of the United Kingdom".
* A crowd of fifty heads — where "head" stands for person.
* Put it on the plastic — material (plastic) for object (credit card), width=60%}}