Kināyah is classified according to the kind of meaning ultimately intended:
1. Identifying an entity or concept, rather than simply a quality or a relation.
2. Suggesting a particular quality.
3. Establishing the attribution of a quality to someone or something.
The third is particularly important: merely expressing generosity differs from directing that quality to a specified individual.
Classification begins with the intended result of the expression, not with its surface grammatical shape alone.