metaphor

metaphor [Gr.,=transfer], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which one class of things is referred to as if it belonged to another class. Whereas a simile states that A is like B, a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A. Some metaphors are explicit, like Shakespeare's line from As You Like It : "All the world's a stage." A metaphor can also be implicit, as in Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXIII, where old age is indicated by a description of autumn:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
  Where yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
  Bare ruined choirs, where once the sweet birds sang.

metaphor XVI. — (O)F. mėtaphore or L. metaphora — Gr. metaphorā́, f. metaphérein transfer; see META-, BEAR2.
So metaphorical, metaphorically XVI.

metaphor, the transfer of a name or descriptive term to an object different from, but analogous to, that to which it is properly applicable, e.g. ‘abysmal ignorance’. Mixed Metaphor is the application of two inconsistent metaphors to one object.

Empson defines metaphor as the first of his Seven Types of Ambiguity.