zoosemy

名词 n.

英文释义

名词 n.
  1. The metaphorical use of animal names or animal-related terms to denote human qualities, e.g. chicken, sly fox, mother hen etc. as epithets for human individuals. uncountable
    — It must be emphasised that in this case the working of the mechanism of zoosemy was so intense that already in the first half of the 16th century — in disparaging use — mongrel started to be used in the sense 'the offspring of parents of different nationalities or of high and low birth' (1542>1898).

词源

From zoo-; sem- (from Ancient Greek σῆμα "token, sign"); -y.
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