ALLEGORY

allegory

(noun) an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances; an extended metaphor

fable, parable, allegory, apologue

(noun) a short moral story (often with animal characters)

emblem, allegory

(noun) a visible symbol representing an abstract idea

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology

Noun

allegory (countable and uncountable, plural allegories)

(rhetoric) The representation of abstract principles by characters or figures.

A picture, book, or other form of communication using such representation.

A symbolic representation which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, usually a moral or political one.

(mathematics, category theory) A category that retains some of the structure of the category of binary relations between sets, representing a high-level generalisation of that category.

Source: Wiktionary

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Al"le*go*ry, n.; pl. Allegories. Etym: [L. allegoria, Gr. allégorie.]

1. A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.

2. Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.

3. (Paint. & Sculpt.)

Definition: A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object painted or sculptured.

Syn.

– Metaphor; fable.

– Allegory, Parable. "An allegory differs both from fable and parable, in that the properties of persons are fictitiously represented as attached to things, to which they are as it were transferred. . . . A figure of Peace and Victory crowning some historical personage is an allegory. "I am the Vine, ye are the branches" [John xv. 1-6] is a spoken allegory. In the parable there is no transference of properties. The parable of the sower [Matt. xiii. 3-23] represents all things as according to their proper nature. In the allegory quoted above the properties of the vine and the relation of the branches are transferred to the person of Christ and His apostles and disciples." C. J. Smith.

Note: An allegory is a prolonged metaphor. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and Spenser's "Faërie Queene" are celebrated examples of the allegory.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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