Dead Metaphor Meaning: 6 Examples of Dead Metaphors

A dead metaphor (also called a frozen metaphor or historical metaphor) is a figure of speech that readers or listeners are so familiar with that it ceases to surprise or conjure an image in their minds, thereby becoming ineffective as an actual metaphor. Many figures of speech or idiomatic phrases started as metaphors but have lost their metaphorical meaning as they’ve become everyday terms or phrases. This transition is a natural part of the evolution of a language that linguists call “semantic shift.”

While other literary devices that rely on comparisons—similes, figurative language, and analogies—can still conjure a visual for readers, a dead metaphor no longer invokes an image. Like clichés, the ubiquity of dead metaphors results in the loss of their original meaning. Here are some examples of dead metaphors in the English language:

1. 1. Bed of roses: This phrase once compared roses to an actual bed for sleeping but has now lost its earlier connotation. The same holds for other bed metaphors, often found in cooking, like a “bed of lettuce” or other greens.
2. 2. Belly up: When you say a business or other institution is about to “go belly up,” meaning it is failing or going bankrupt, the idiom no longer instills the metaphorical image of an animal on its back.
3. 3. Body of an essay: Writers refer to the main parts of an essay as the “body paragraphs” or “body of an essay.” While people once used this phrase to compare an essay to the human body, it is now so common that it no longer holds its original meaning.
4. 4. Falling in love: Once used to conjure the act of falling, readers now consider this phrase a conventional way to refer to becoming enamored with someone.
5. 5. Hands of a clock: Before “hands of a clock” entered the English lexicon, “pointers” or “indexes” were standard terms for the “hands” of a clock. “Face of a clock” is another example of a dead metaphor.
6. 6. Heart of gold: While “heart of gold” used to be a surprising phrase to draw a comparison between a kind person’s heart and valuable material, readers now overlook the literal meaning of the common phrase.

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