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Comment by tshaddox | Hacker News Reader

The definition is of the word, not "of a metaphor." If you want to talk about the "original" meaning or "etymologically faithful" meaning or whatever, then go for it, but note that most modern baby cradles aren't at all baskets in the sense that the English word originated. That's because all words originate as imperfectly-specified references to things and concepts. The things and concepts and our references to them change over time.

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> The definition is of the word, not "of a metaphor."

I don't really care to weigh in on the rest of this spat, but this isn't a contradiction: it is the case that a given sense of a word, listed in a dictionary, may yet be metaphorical—it is not the case that finding a definition of a word in a dictionary proves that that sense isn't metaphorical, and in fact, any common metaphorical usage of a word is quite likely to end up in a dictionary, at which point it does not (necessarily!) stop being metaphorical. (I find the rest of the post basically sound, for all the nothing my judgement on that is worth—this part is just not strong, is all)

I just think it’s a bit of a weird line to draw because you have to somehow choose how far back to go in the etymological history of the word and insist that every different meaning thereafter is “metaphorical.”

Personally I wouldn’t call usages that are so widely used and understood that they’re in every dictionary “figurative.”

Yes. But at this point in time, no one is looking at a river or valley and using the noun “cradle” to categorize it. I’m not saying it could never become a literalism—only that it remains metaphorical, as a way to invoke the idea of a birthplace.

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