metonymy n 🔊

1. (rhetoric)
   1. (uncountable) The use of a single characteristic or part of a concept, object, or phenomenon to identify the whole, or a related thing; also (semantics) the process of semantic association involved in interpreting or producing this.
   2. (countable) Synonym of metonym (“a term which identifies a concept, object, or phenomenon from a single characteristic or part of it, or from a related thing”).
2. (by extension, countable) A thing which is used to represent or symbolize something else; a representation, a symbol.

☞ The American singer Shirley Ellis released her song “The Name Game” this month in 1964.

Wall Street street sign.jpg

A street sign for Wall Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.A. The use of the term Wall Street to refer to American financial institutions or financial markets as a whole is an example of metonymy (sense 1.1).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Word_of_the_day/2026/November_1