Allegory

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Allegory \Al"le*go*ry\, n.; pl. {Allegories}. [L. allegoria, Gr.
     ?, description of one thing under the image of another; ?
     other + ? to speak in the assembly, harangue, ? place of
     assembly, fr. ? to assemble: cf. F. all['e]gorie.]
     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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an
        emblem.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Paint. & Sculpt.) A figure representation which has a
        meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object
        painted or sculptured.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Metaphor; fable.
  
     Usage: {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.
            [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: An allegory is a prolonged metaphor. Bunyan's
           "Pilgrim's Progress" and Spenser's "Fa["e]rie Queene"
           are celebrated examples of the allegory.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  allegory
       n 1: a short moral story (often with animal characters) [syn: {fable},
             {parable}, {apologue}]
       2: a visible symbol representing an abstract idea [syn: {emblem}]
       3: an expressive style that uses fictional characters and
          events to describe some subject by suggestive
          resemblances; an extended metaphor

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  117 Moby Thesaurus words for "allegory":
     Marchen, Western, Western story, Westerner, adventure story,
     allusion, analogy, apologue, arcane meaning, assumption, balancing,
     bedtime story, charactery, cipher, coloration, comparative anatomy,
     comparative degree, comparative grammar, comparative judgment,
     comparative linguistics, comparative literature,
     comparative method, compare, comparing, comparison, confrontation,
     confrontment, connotation, contrast, contrastiveness,
     conventional symbol, correlation, detective story, distinction,
     distinctiveness, emblem, fable, fabliau, fairy tale, fantasy,
     fiction, figuration, folk story, folktale, gest, ghost story, hint,
     horse opera, iconology, ideogram, implication, implied meaning,
     import, inference, innuendo, intimation, ironic suggestion, legend,
     likening, logogram, logotype, love knot, love story, matching,
     meaning, metaphor, metaphorical sense, mystery, mystery story,
     myth, mythology, mythos, nuance, nursery tale, occult meaning,
     opposing, opposition, overtone, parable, parallelism, pictogram,
     presumption, presupposition, proportion, relation, romance,
     science fiction, shocker, simile, similitude, space fiction,
     space opera, subsense, subsidiary sense, suggestion, supposition,
     suspense story, symbol, symbolic system, symbolism, symbolization,
     symbology, thriller, tinge, token, totem, totem pole, touch,
     trope of comparison, type, typification, undercurrent,
     undermeaning, undertone, weighing, whodunit, work of fiction
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Allegory
     used only in Gal. 4:24, where the apostle refers to the history
     of Isaac the free-born, and Ishmael the slave-born, and makes
     use of it allegorically.
     
       Every parable is an allegory. Nathan (2 Sam. 12:1-4) addresses
     David in an allegorical narrative. In the eightieth Psalm there
     is a beautiful allegory: "Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt,"
     etc. In Eccl. 12:2-6, there is a striking allegorical
     description of old age.