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Mixed metaphor
An overreaching, contradictory or incongruous combination of two distinct metaphors, similes or idioms; for example, "He's made his bed, and now he'll have to see how the cookie crumbles".
📖 Definitions of "Mixed metaphor"
noun
- 1
An overreaching, contradictory or incongruous combination of two distinct metaphors, similes or idioms; for example, "He's made his bed, and now he'll have to see how the cookie crumbles".
💡 Words with a Similar Meaning to "Mixed metaphor"
Found via reverse dictionary — words that share a conceptual meaning.
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| supermetaphornoun | An overarching metaphor; a metaphor that encompasses several sub-metaphors. |
| extended metaphornoun | (rhetoric) A metaphor that is continued over multiple sentences. |
| conceptual metaphornoun | (linguistics) The understanding of one idea or conceptual domain in terms of another. |
| oxymoronnoun | (rhetoric) A figure of speech in which two words or phrases with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect. |
| metaphornoun | (uncountable, rhetoric) The use of a word, phrase, concept, or set of concepts to refer to something other than its literal meaning, invoking an implicit similarity between the thing described and what is denoted by the word, etc., that is used. |
| antimetabolenoun | (rhetoric) The technique of repeating a phrase while reversing the order of certain elements or its grammatical structure, as a form of juxtaposition. |
| merismusnoun | (rhetoric) A metonymic term to describe a type of synecdoche in which two parts of a thing, perhaps contrasting or complementary parts, are made to stand for the whole. |
| mixed picturenoun | (idiomatic) A situation in which both negatives and positives are found. |
| xenonymynoun | The juxtaposition of semantically incompatible words. |
| figura etymologicanoun | A multiword figure of speech in which two or more different words are etymologically related. |
| best of both worldsnoun | (idiomatic, singular only) A combination of two seemingly contradictory benefits. |
| equivoquenoun | Ambiguity or double meaning. |
| antimetathesisnoun | The inversion of the parts of an antithesis, as in "A poem is a speaking picture; a picture, a mute poem" (Crabbe). |
| double entendrenoun | A phrase that has two meanings, especially where one is innocent and literal, the other risqué, bawdy, or ironic; an innuendo. |
| syllepsisnoun | (rhetoric) A figure of speech in which one word simultaneously modifies two or more other words such that the modification must be understood differently with respect to each modified word; often causing humorous incongruity. |
| contradiction in termsnoun | A phrase or expression in which the component words contradict one another, often unintentionally, or are claimed to do so when seen from a particular point of view. |
| equivocationnoun | The use of expressions susceptible of a double signification, possibly intentionally and with the aim of misleading. |
| double meaningnoun | The situation in which a word or phrase has two different, often opposite, meanings. For example, wicked can mean both "good" and "bad". |
| paradoxnoun | An apparently self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa. |
| worst of both worldsnoun | (idiomatic, singular only) A solution or scenario which combines the disadvantages of two opposed prior solutions, often having been intended to combine their benefits instead. |
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