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
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
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
19 April 2025
(verb) grasp with the mind or develop an understanding of; “did you catch that allusion?”; “We caught something of his theory in the lecture”; “don’t catch your meaning”; “did you get it?”; “She didn’t get the joke”; “I just don’t get him”
The Boston Tea Party helped popularize coffee in America. The hefty tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773 resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, it became patriotic to sip java instead of tea. The Civil War made the drink more pervasive. Coffee helped energize tired troops, and drinking it became an expression of freedom.
