释义 |
metalepses met·a·lep·sis M5261325 (mĕt′l-ĕp′sĭs)n. pl. met·a·lep·ses (-sēz′) 1. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase makes indirect reference to another figure of speech. For example, in "His new leaf turned out to be short-lived, and his life spiraled back out of control," "new leaf" alludes to the expression "turn over a new leaf."2. A narrative device that involves transgressing the boundary between a fictional world and the real world or between two discrete fictional worlds, as when a character from one TV series makes an appearance in a different series. [Latin metalēpsis, from Greek, alternation, succession, the use of one word for another, from metalambanein, metalēp-, to take instead, substitute, receive in succession : meta-, meta- + lambanein, lēp-, to take.]metalepses (ˌmɛtəˈlɛpsiːz) pl n (Rhetoric) figurative substitutions in which a concept is described by a word that is distanced from that concept by multiple, usually metonymical, links |