metonymy

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The Word of the Day for October 14 is:

metonymy   \muh-TAH-nuh-mee\   noun
     : a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of 
one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or 
with which it is associated

Example sentence:
     American journalists employ metonymy whenever they say "the 
White House" in place of "the president and his administration."

Did you know?
     When Mark Antony asks the people of Rome to lend him their 
ears in William Shakespeare's play _Julius Caesar_, he is 
employing the rhetorical device known as metonymy. Derived via 
Latin from the Greek "metonymia" (from "meta-," meaning "among, 
with, after" and "onyma," meaning "name"), metonymy often 
appears in news articles and headlines, such as when journalists 
use the term "crown" to refer to a king or queen. Another common 
example is the use of an author's name to refer to works written 
by that person, as in "He is studying Hemingway." Metonymy is 
closely related to synecdoche, which refers to the naming of a 
part of something to refer to the whole thing (or vice versa), 
as in "We hired extra hands to help us."