Majāz involves an occurrence that communicates something other than its assigned meaning in the governing register through an admissible relation and an indicator excluding the literal sense. Mere novelty, unusual word length, or incorrect labeling cannot establish it.
Literal and figurative uses may be lexical, religious, specialized customary, or generally customary. Single-word and composite expressions should also be distinguished according to where the transfer occurs.
The next stage considers the character of the semantic relation: resemblance gives rise to metaphorical transfer (istiʿārah), whereas other relations belong to the study of majāz mursal.