A Brief Guide to the Differences between
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Bryn Frye-Mason, NMJCL President
Although similar to one another, metonymy and synecdoche have a clear
difference in their meaning. Metonymy is when a word is used to mean something
that it is associated with, in various different ways, and synecdoche is when (in
literature) a part replaces the whole (e.g. all hands on deck, where the hands of the
workers replaced the actual workers). The key difference between these two
rhetorical devices is that synecdoche speci cally refers to a part of the thing that it
replaces; for example “all hands on deck” refers to the hands, which are an actual
physical part of the workers. Because of this “part of the whole” aspect of
synecdoche, it is commonly used with body parts; however, this does not always
hold true. For instance, if you say “all eyes on me,” this would instead be an
instance of metonymy and not synecdoche because the eyes are not representing the
body which they are a part of, but sight. So, the idea of sight and eyes have become
so closely linked that they can represent one another. Because of metonymy’s less
restrictive bonds, it appears that any word that represents something through a
relationship to it is metonymy, even the ones that are also synecdoche. This is to say,
all uses of synecdoche are metonymy, but not all uses of metonymy are synecdoche.
The tricky part arises when you consider something such as “suits” in place of
businessmen, or “the Crown” in place of royalty. Suits and crowns are not
physically a part of the businessmen and royalty, but they are closely linked with
the idea behind these two different classes. So, at rst glance these two rhetorical
devices are simply metonymy, however, their connection with one another arose
because suits and crowns were a part of their respective out ts, so the question
arises: for a rhetorical device to be synecdoche, does the part have to be physically
attached to the whole, or can it be something that is commonly attached to it?
Further, does the White House, used to speak of the president, qualify as
synecdoche? Or, since it is closer to being the whole of the part, does it only fall
under metonymy? I would tend to say that the White House is just metonymy and
not synecdoche. Although there are some questionable lines between these two
devices, they have, in general, a clear distinction.
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