Metaphor
Etymology
From Greek metaphorá, "a transfer, a carrying across," from metaphérein: metá ("across, beyond") + phérein ("to carry"). The image is of meaning physically transported from one thing to another. Modern Greek still uses metaforá for a moving van — the word does literally haul freight.
noun · /MET-uh-for/
Describing one thing as if it were another to illuminate a likeness between them.
What it names
The everyday magic of "time is money" or "a flood of emails" — carrying meaning across from one domain to another, which is how much of abstract thought gets said at all.
Example
The report leaned on one central metaphor, treating the company as an ecosystem that could be nurtured or poisoned.
Related idea
Simile makes the comparison explicit with "like" or "as"; a metaphor asserts the identity outright, saying the thing is rather than is like.