dead metaphor

noun

: a word or phrase (such as time is running out) that has lost its metaphoric force through common usage

Examples of dead metaphor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Many of our emotion terms are references to states of the body—we’re downcast, bent out of shape, head over heels, shaken up, down in the mouth—which have slowly rigidified into dead metaphor. —Nikhil Krishnan, The New Yorker, 1 Aug. 2022

This shift reminds us that dead metaphors aren’t always terminally dead. —Rob Nixon, Smithsonian, 23 Mar. 2018

Word History

First Known Use

1922, in the meaning defined above