<P> Metonymy (/ mɪˈtɒnɪmi / mi - TON - i - mee) is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept . The words metonymy and metonym come from the Greek μετωνῠμία, metōnymía, "a change of name", from μετά, metá, "after, beyond", and - ωνυμία, - ōnymía, a suffix that names figures of speech, from ὄνῠμα, ónyma or ὄνομα, ónoma, "name". </P> <P> A place is often used as a metonym for a government or other official institutions, for example, Brussels for the institutions of the European Union, The Hague for the International Court of Justice or International Criminal Court, Nairobi for the government of Kenya, or the White House and Capitol Hill for the executive and legislative branches, respectively, of the United States federal government . A place can represent an entire industry: for instance Wall Street is often used metonymically to describe the entire U.S. financial and corporate banking sector . Common nouns and phrases can also be metonyms: red tape can stand for bureaucracy, whether or not that bureaucracy actually uses red tape to bind documents . In Commonwealth realms, The Crown is a metonym for the state in all its aspects . </P>

The idea that concepts are represented by a common instance of the category is called