فَالِاسْتِعَارَةُ مَا تَضَمَّنَ تَشْبِيهَ مَعْنَاهُ بِمَا وُضِعَ لَهُ
Metaphor has been described as usage whose meaning involves comparison with the sense for which its word was assigned.
The definition prompts a precise objection: if the employed sense is identical with the assigned sense, comparison becomes self-comparison. If a different sense is intended, the account must specify which word is transferred and at what level the analogy operates.
Expressions such as “Zayd is a lion” or “I saw Zayd as a lion” require analysis of predicate structure and the intended use of “lion.” Suppressing a comparative particle alone is not enough to prove lexical metaphor in every construction.