(~s)
1.
A ~ is an imaginative way of describing something by referring to something else which is the same in a particular way. For example, if you want to say that someone is very shy and frightened of things, you might say that they are a mouse.
...the avoidance of ‘violent expressions and ~s’ like ‘kill two birds with one stone’.
...the writer’s use of ~.
N-VAR
2.
If one thing is a ~ for another, it is intended or regarded as a symbol of it.
The divided family remains a powerful ~ for a society that continued to tear itself apart.
N-VAR: oft N for n
3.
If you mix your ~s, you use two conflicting ~s. People do this accidentally, or sometimes deliberately as a joke.
To mix yet more ~s, you were trying to run before you could walk, and I’ve clipped your wings...
PHRASE: V inflects