catachresis

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for catachresis
Noun
  • No metaphors or similes or hyperbolic language needed here – your kids are next.
    Rob Gagnon, Hartford Courant, 25 Mar. 2025
  • Her father was a scientist and worked for NASA, so her work, including The Body’s Question and Life on Mars, is infused with the cosmos and space and all these metaphors and similes tied to the most mysterious places in the universe.
    Lisa Wong Macabasco, Vogue, 22 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • The phrase is typically a euphemism for leaving discreetly, often to use the restroom.
    Russel Honoré, Newsweek, 5 Mar. 2025
  • After sixteen months of watching a genocide happen in real time—with more-or-less total support from Western governments, despite the euphemisms and justifications skillfully woven by headlines and political speeches—the contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.
    Hazlitt, Hazlitt, 27 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • In 2025, there is no single issue like slavery dividing America, and that makes the demise of Britain's Liberal Party a better analogy for today's Democrats.
    Newsweek Staff, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Apr. 2025
  • When there’s no pathogen present, the two kinases are bound together — thus the handcuffs analogy.
    Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 28 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • Here, instead, she’s swayed by a dead Diana softly squeezing her hand and kindly hinting — the dead Diana is an ace at tactful circumlocution — that now is the time to show a mourning nation some emotion.
    Tom Gliatto, Peoplemag, 16 Nov. 2023
  • By condensing Balzac’s opus to a few paragraphs, Barthelme was having a laugh not just at his predecessor’s genteel circumlocution—his tendency to describe buildings and manufacturing procedures and family trees in lavish detail—but also at the conventions of novelistic mimesis itself.
    Giles Harvey, The New York Review of Books, 23 Apr. 2020
Noun
  • Cats, however, may turn out to be the canaries in the coalmines — pardon the mixed metaphor.
    Jan Ellen Spiegel, Hartford Courant, 24 Dec. 2024
  • Yeah, that's probably a mixed metaphor, or actually a simile.
    Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 21 Jan. 2011
Noun
  • Prudent families can also come up with a code word to use in an emergency which a scammer will never know.
    Steve Weisman, Forbes, 14 Mar. 2025
  • Finally, the correct authenticator code word matched what was in my hands.
    Steve Koester, Twin Cities, 7 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • These tigers serve as a metaphor for market participants who are engaged in manipulative trading activities in the after-market.
    Hersh Shefrin, Forbes.com, 5 Apr. 2025
  • Exploring the business implications of the drug metaphor could be a fruitful area of world-building for a sequel; perhaps Jade, Riley, and their friends could seek out the source of the hand in an attempt to free Mia from its clutches?
    Katie Rife, Vulture, 31 Mar. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Catachresis.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/catachresis. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

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