metaphorically
35
6.7
- adverb
- /ˌmɛtəˈfɔrɪkli/
:
metafóricamente
- She described her journey metaphorically, comparing it to a long and winding road.
- metaphorically speaking
- used metaphorically
- words used metaphorically
OK, now you can take that metaphorically.
- OK, now you can take that metaphorically.
- If you had gigantic billboard, metaphorically speaking, Right, I think I do actually.
- And you're placing those things metaphorically above you, giving them highest priority.
- You need Xanax with it because I never thought life was that short, and I knew it metaphorically, but not in seconds, minutes and hours.
- And, and there's something to that idea that metaphorically speaking, institutions, companies, cities have a culture.
- So think of these three states metaphorically like you would think of water becoming ice as the physical world.
- It's like you really can take your hands off the wheel metaphorically and be guided and get hot the higher perspective.
- And as it's going, you are somehow able to metaphorically stand on the stern, the back of the boat, and look down into the water.
- And it takes a lot of, you know, metaphorically massaging their shoulders to get them to calm down so they can calm their children down.
- I'm, I'm, I'm saying this metaphorically or as an analogy, if you will, But when people say just be you just give us straight you.
- That could sort of metaphorically build up the wall, right?
- So if I separate from it, I can put Hermie metaphorically in her cage.
- Takes a high level of ego to put up a fight metaphorically in terms of that's my pump, right?
Examples
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Of course you meant it metaphorically.
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Tremendous things are in store, both literally and metaphorically.
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That could sort of metaphorically build up the wall, right?
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And I hope that we can all metaphorically link arms and get that message across.
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I meant that metaphorically speaking.
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Are we still speaking metaphorically?
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We all wear masks, metaphorically speaking.
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It's time we took the high road, metaphorically as well as physically.
Fiction book (1999) -
He meant that metaphorically, of course.
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I'm speaking metaphorically here.
Synonyms
34
4.8
To use words to say something that is not literally true
24
6.0
In a way that shows an idea instead of saying it directly
In a way that is not meant to be taken literally
In a non-literal way that uses words or images to show an idea
In a way that compares one thing to a similar thing
Antonyms
How Figurative
Surface Forms
Morphology
metaphorically = metaphorical (transparent) = metaphor + ical + ly
Formed by adding the productive adverbial suffix '-ly' to 'metaphorical', yielding a regular adverb meaning 'in a metaphorical way'.
Etymology
Metaphorically comes from metaphor, which has the prefix meta- meaning 'across' and a root meaning 'to carry', so a metaphor 'carries' meaning from one thing to another. So to speak metaphorically is to use one idea to explain another, not to speak 'literally'.