The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Antonomasia

Antonomasia: A rhetorical figure involving the regular substitution of an epithet for a proper name. The term has also been used to describe the substitution of a proper name for a general idea that the name evokes.

EXAMPLES: John Milton’s frequent substitution of “The Great Adversary” for “Satan” in Paradise Lost (1667) is an example of the first type of antonomasia. Other examples include the ship captain’s continual use of epithets such as “that absurdly whiskered mate” and “my terrifically whiskered mate” to refer to his second-in-command in Joseph Conrad’s novella The Secret Sharer (1912) and Reuben Land’s references to Martin Andreeson, the federal agent on the trail of his fugitive brother, as “the putrid fed” in Leif Enger’s novel Peace Like a River (2003).

By contrast, use of the name “Judas” or Benedict Arnold” to refer to a traitor is an example of the second type of antonomasia.