figure of speech

noun, plural figures of speech. Rhetoric.

any expressive use of language, as a metaphor, simile, personification, or antithesis, in which words are used in other than their literal sense, or in other than their ordinary locutions, in order to suggest a picture or image or for other special effect. Compare trope (def. 1).

Origin:
1815–25

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To figure of speech

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Figure of speech is always a great word to know.

So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

figure of speech

—n
	an expression of language, such as simile, metaphor, or personification, by which the usual or literal meaning of a word is not employed

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"Lycurgus, Numa, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, all these great rogues, all these great thought-tyrants, knew how to associate the divinities they fabricated with their own boundless ambition."

-Marquis de Sade