3.3.6 Metonymy

In metonymy the writer/poet uses an attribute, object, event or quality to refer to a person. Like synecdoche, the metonymy leads from the particular to the general and allows the writer/poet to be more specific.

Example:

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes best

(From William Collins' "How sleep the brave")
(In New Oxford Book of English verse (1927). A. Quiller-Couch (Ed.). Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press.)

Here Collins is able to extol the courage of those who gave their lives in battle by reference to the general idea of the "brave", rather than by speaking of individuals.