SYNECDOCHE

figure of speech in which a part represents the whole, as in the expression hired hands for workmen or, less commonly, the whole represents a part, as in the use of the word society to mean high society. Closely related to metonymythe replacement of a word by one closely related to the originalsynecdoche is an important poetic device for creating vivid imagery. An example is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's line in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The western wave was all aflame, in which wave substitutes for sea. See also metonymy.