Synecdoche vs Metonymy

[Jason7377]

Hi I had a few questions on these two. If you were to say something like "He suffered at the hands of many" which would that be? I would guess Synecdoche because the hands represent the whole (the people who hurt him). I'm having trouble with the differences. Thanks for the help :-D God Bless.

 

[BobK]

There's an overlap; one's a sort of the other.

Synecdoche, wherein a specific part of something is used to refer to the whole, is usually understood as a specific kind of metonymy. Sometimes, however, people make an absolute distinction between a metonym and a synecdoche, treating metonymy as different from rather than inclusive of synecdoche. There is a similar problem with the usage of simile and metaphor.

More here: Metonymy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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