supermetaphor

Noun

supermetaphor (plural supermetaphors)

1. A grounding fact; a correspondance between the underlying truth and our ideas and constructions based on that truth.
   • In this way he promotes landscape into a supermetaphor, in order to expose a general tendency towards equalization.1997, Archis - Issues 9-12, page 27
   • Each legal order stands on a grounding fact, a superfact or a supermetaphor, as I would call it, which determines the specific interpretive standpoint or perspective that characterizes the adopted type of projection.2002, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Toward a New Legal Common Sense: Law, Globalization, and Emancipation, →ISBN
2. An overarching metaphor; a metaphor that encompasses several sub-metaphors.
   • The third chapter focuses on the theme of alcohol, which is a sort of "supermetaphor" of poetic distillation, encompassing all the other metaphors.1996, Masters Abstracts - Volume 34, Issues 3-4, page 1375
   • This is a case of supermetaphor called metalepsis by Quintilian and transumptio by Geoffrey of Vinsauf. The images echo one another.1998, Aldo D. Scaglione, Paolo Cherchi, Essays on the Arts of Discourse: Linguistics, Rhetoric, Poetics, →ISBN
3. A metaphor that is particularly widespread or dominant.
   • "Mother" as supermetaphor for "man's projection of the ideal" is dealt a final blow by McBride's organized exposition of the alternative: female parents and male parents — "because no one sex and no one person should be responsible for...1973, The New York Times Book Review - Volume 78, page 52
   • BCCI suddenly bloomed as a sort of supermetaphor for the INTRODUCTION: THE DEVIL'S PAYMASTER.2004, Jonathan Beaty, S. C. Gwynne, The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride Into the Secret Heart of BCCI, →ISBN, page xxiii
4. A metaphor about metaphors.
   • Driven by the demands of undergraduate teaching, Morgan wanted to translate Sociological Paradigms into a work that would appeal not only to academics and students of organization but also to practitioners. In pursuit of this aim, he alighted upon what we might characterize as a super-metaphor: the...2016, Anders Örtenblad, Kiran Trehan, Linda L. Putnam, Exploring Morgan’s Metaphors, →ISBN