A reinforced metaphor (tarshīḥ) supplies features appropriate to the comparison source, as when an orator called a “lion” is further described with leonine traits. Imaginative metaphor can also involve a feature peculiar to the unstated comparison source.
Because of this overlap, some readings bring imagination close to reinforcement. Yet one account treats imagined attribution as central to constructing the scene, while reinforcement strengthens an already established metaphor.
Mentioning an associated feature alone does not make the two operations identical.