SG Heritage Dictionary

Antonomasia [\N] Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. ANTONOMA'SIA ,

2. ANTONOM'ASY, noun [Gr. name.]

3. To use of the name of some office, dignity, profession, science or trade, instead of the true name of the person; as when his majesty is used for a king, lordship for a nobleman. Thus instead of Aristotle, we say, the philosopher; a grave man is called a Cato; an eminent orator, a Cicero; a wise man, a Solomon. In the latter examples, a proper name is used for an appellative; the application being supported by a resemblance in character.

Antonomasia [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

The use of some epithet or the name of some office, dignity, or the like, instead of the proper name of the person; as when his majesty is used for a king, or when, instead of Aristotle, we say, the philosopher; or, conversely, the use of a proper name instead of an appellative, as when a wise man is called a Solomon, or an eminent orator a Cicero.

Antonomasia Encyclopedia Britannica

ANTONOMASIA(αντονομασία) is, in rhetoric, the substitution of any epithet or phrase for a proper name; as “Pelides,” or “the son of Peleus,” for Achilles; “the Stagyrite·” for Aristotle; “the author of Paradise Lost ” for Milton; “the little corporal” for Napoleon the First; “Macedonia’s madman” for Alexander the Great, <fcc. <⅛c. Besides gratifying tho taste for variety, it affords the opportunity of bringing indirectly into view facts or feelings that it is not considered desirable or expedient to express distinctly by themselves. The opposite substitution of a proper name for some generic term is also sometimes called antonomasia; as, a “Cicero” for an orator. In both cases the figure is akin to metonymy.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 2, p. 141
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