Metaphoricness
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The quality of being metaphoric. rare, uncountable
"In time, the irrational refusal to accept the reality of an other-controlled existence ends in the pseudoschizophrenic posture, in which the offended but innocent self-styled victim complains, “I am damned if I do, and I am damned if I don’t.” This double bind – as Gregory Bateson and his colleagues call it – is characterized by the most hopeless confusion of literalness and metaphoricness. Like the schizophrenic patient, the embattled and confined and angry and anxious part, persisting in his metaphorical identity with the collective good, seems doomed to some permanent rupture with reality."
Example
More examples"In time, the irrational refusal to accept the reality of an other-controlled existence ends in the pseudoschizophrenic posture, in which the offended but innocent self-styled victim complains, “I am damned if I do, and I am damned if I don’t.” This double bind – as Gregory Bateson and his colleagues call it – is characterized by the most hopeless confusion of literalness and metaphoricness. Like the schizophrenic patient, the embattled and confined and angry and anxious part, persisting in his metaphorical identity with the collective good, seems doomed to some permanent rupture with reality."
Etymology
From metaphoric + -ness.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.