What's an allegory?

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Allegory:

1.Description of a subject under the guise of some other subject of aptly suggestive resemblance.

2.An instance of such description: a figurative sentence, discourse, or narrative, in which properties and circumstances attributed to the apparent subject really refer to the subject they are meant to suggest; an extended or continued metaphor.

3. An allegorical representation: an emblem.

The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford 1971), 1:58.

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