metaphor

noun

• a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable:“I had fallen through a trapdoor of depression,” said Mark, who was fond of theatrical metaphors her poetry depends on suggestion and metaphor
• a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract:the amounts of money being lost by the company were enough to make it a metaphor for an industry that was teetering