conceptual metaphor

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor refers to the understanding of one conceptual domain in terms of another, for example, understanding time in terms of space (e.g. "time flies"). A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of experience.This idea, and a detailed examination of the underlying processes, was first extensively explored by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their work Metaphors We Live By. Other cognitive scientists study subjects similar to conceptual metaphor under the labels "analogy" and "conceptual blending."
See more at Wikipedia.org...