Different directions of inference provide a useful introductory distinction between kināyah and majāz, but the scope of that distinction is contested. Some expressions permit different ways of relating the associated meanings, and an implication may be conventional rather than strictly logical.
A sound analysis should therefore ask more than one question:
What is the literal meaning?
What meaning is intended?
What relation connects them?
Does contextual evidence rule out literal intention?
Together these questions offer a more reliable distinction than relying on a single directional label.