At its most basic level, a metaphor describes the use of a body of knowledge about one concept to understand or comment on a second concept. Metaphors are especially powerful when used to help understand a concept that is unfamiliar or unapproachable. The classic example of this use of metaphor is the attempt to understand death and dying: religious dogma aside, no definitive explanation of what happens to a person's consciousness (soul, karma, whatever) after death has been established. Certainly on an immediate level, most people aren't clear on this milestone, but most people do have a personal concept of what generally happens at death, and this concept is usually based on metaphor.

At its most complex level, metaphor is considered a type of figurative language, specifically a trope or "figure of thought".

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