What's the difference between metonymy and synecdoche?

Metonymy


Definition:

  • (n.) A trope in which one word is put for another that suggests it; as, we say, a man keeps a good table instead of good provisions; we read Virgil, that is, his poems; a man has a warm heart, that is, warm affections.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The two patient groups showed quite relevant differences as to their own expressive modalities in the use of metaphor and metonymy, which are considered as the graphic representation means of the illness.
  • (2) Fort McMurray is more than an environmental hotspot, more than a metonymy for oil sands, more than a grail for jobseekers and grifters.

Synecdoche


Definition:

  • (n.) A figure or trope by which a part of a thing is put for the whole (as, fifty sail for fifty ships), or the whole for a part (as, the smiling year for spring), the species for the genus (as, cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as, a creature for a man), the name of the material for the thing made, etc.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This paper details Semai beliefs, loose ends and all, and suggests that their formal peculiarities are due to the prevalence of synecdoche in conceptual organization.
  • (2) We no longer trust politicians or the clergy; but we are hungry for cooks to tell us not just how to eat but how to live, the moralistic synecdoche easily accomplished since we now happily accept that one lives through eating.
  • (3) Arguably his towering accomplishment, though, is his performance in the 2008 oddity Synecdoche, New York, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman.
  • (4) It wasn't a bad synecdoche; like the city, Cantor exuded southern efficiency and northern charm.
  • (5) As well as taking on The Knife of Never Letting Go, Kaufman will follow up his 2008 film Synecdoche, New York with the self-penned Frank or Francis , in which Steve Carell's film director goes up against a blogger played by Jack Black .