A parable is a figurative image with a single message (sometimes mistaken for an analogy, in which each element has a metaphoric meaning).

It picked up metaphoric meaning in 1612, in a religious tract about the "eare-markt slaues of Sathan."

And integrity also assumes a specific metaphoric meaning in the context of a museum.

At the climax of the complicated story, some of the events are so far-fetched that their only logic lies in their metaphoric meaning.

I wanted to convey the sense of a larger, metaphoric meaning.

Here is superimposition made live, equivalent to an electronic overlay in television but now given a metaphoric meaning: The heroine and her alter egos.

Both colors had metaphoric meanings, as they do here in two scenes meant to be perceived as sequential.

They're advised, however, to look for metaphoric rather than literal meanings.

Thus, the metaphoric meaning of "headed South" is not so much "downward" as "bad news."

But the metaphoric meaning of the phrase is "to walk with great care, lightly, tippy-toe, taking precaution not to offend."