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Dead Metaphor

nounid 45965·updated May 18, 2026
verified

a metaphor that has occurred so often that it has become a new meaning of the expression (e.g., `he is a snake' may once have been a metaphor but after years of use it has died and become a new sense of the word `snake')

MWE

Classifications

Entity Type

Unknownauthoritativeglossary_import_default_pending_classifier

Sensitivity

unclassified

Information Class

unclassified

Variants

synonym
frozen metaphor
plural
Dead Metaphors
possessive
Dead Metaphor's
pluralpossessive
Dead Metaphors'

Framework definitions

Wordset Dictionary1 senseview framework →
§1
a metaphor that has occurred so often that it has become a new meaning of the expression (e.g., `he is a snake' may once have been a metaphor but after years of use it has died and become a new sense of the word `snake')

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