3.3.5 Synecdoche

A synecdoche is a device which the writer/poet uses to signify the whole, such as using a part of the body to mean the whole person, for example, the head or the hand. It is a means of substituting the particular for the general and so enables the writer to make a more specific statement

Example:

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

From Thomas Gray's "Elegy written in a country church-yard")
(In The Progress of Poetry (1965). C.J. Horne & M. O'Brien (Eds.). Melbourne: Heinemann.)

There are two synecdoches in the above extract with the particular use of "heart" and "hand" to represent the unknown person buried in the graveyard. He could have been a great statesman or even a poet! The use of the synecdoche enables Gray to speculate about this person.