allegory
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English allegorie, from Old French allegorie, from Latin allēgoria, from Ancient Greek ἀλληγορία (allēgoría), from ἄλλος (állos, “other”) + ἀγορεύω (agoreúō, “I speak”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]allegory (countable and uncountable, plural allegories)
- (rhetoric) A narrative in which a character, place, or event is used to deliver a broader message about real-world issues and occurrences.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter III, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 30–31:
- Ah! the Roman emperor, who desired that his slavery might be alleviated by his fetters being made of gold, was a very rational person. I have always considered it an allegory, showing the necessity of marrying for money.
- 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.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 11:
- There were casts of the Gladiator—he whose native courage struggled against the doom which was yet welcome—a mournful allegory of honour.
- (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.
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]the representation of abstract principles
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communication using such representation
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symbolic representation
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
See also
[edit]Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
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- English lemmas
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- en:Rhetoric
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- en:Mathematics
- en:Category theory