Metonymies are frequently used in literature and in everyday speech. A metonymy is a word or phrase that is used to stand in for another word. Sometimes a metonymy is chosen because it is a well-known characteristic of the word.
One famous example of metonymy is the saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword," which originally came from Edward Bulwer Lytton's play Richelieu. This sentence has two examples of metonymy:
The "pen" stands in for "the written word."
The "sword" stands in for "military aggression and force.