as in parable
a story intended to teach a basic truth or moral about life
Dr. Seuss's story "The Sneetches" is a telling allegory about tolerance for people's differences
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Recent Examples of allegory
Scarpa also wrote Scott’s J. Paul Getty fictionalization All the Money in the World, Napoleon, and the military-power allegory The Last Castle, but timely political coincidences sustain this otherwise hoary tale.
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Armond White, National Review, 6 Dec. 2024
But Frank Herbert’s epically imaginative sci-fi allegory wasn’t the sole source to give the character shape.
—Daron James, Los Angeles Times, 6 Dec. 2024
Making the sequel just as successful will be the bigger challenge: As those familiar with the stage version know, Wicked’s second act covers a much more convoluted plot that not only retells The Wizard of Oz but also wades more deeply into political allegory.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2024
Spice, spice, baby Herbert’s Dune was basically an allegory for American and British wars for oil, with spice swapped in for petroleum and gasoline.
—Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 14 Nov. 2024
See all Example Sentences for allegory 
Armond White, National Review, 6 Dec. 2024
But Frank Herbert’s epically imaginative sci-fi allegory wasn’t the sole source to give the character shape.
—Daron James, Los Angeles Times, 6 Dec. 2024
Making the sequel just as successful will be the bigger challenge: As those familiar with the stage version know, Wicked’s second act covers a much more convoluted plot that not only retells The Wizard of Oz but also wades more deeply into political allegory.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2024
Spice, spice, baby Herbert’s Dune was basically an allegory for American and British wars for oil, with spice swapped in for petroleum and gasoline.
—Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 14 Nov. 2024
See all Example Sentences for allegory
Recent Examples of Synonyms for allegory
Noun
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Some people come to listen, some to vent, some to mull the parables through fogs of addiction or mental illness.Moriah Ratner, New York Times, 24 Nov. 2024
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Even absent conscious efforts to use them strategically, parables in pop culture can inform how audiences think about real-world politics—often in ways that authors don’t necessarily intend.Charli Carpenter, Foreign Affairs, 27 May 2019
Noun
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Characters in most fables do not have legs, let alone race.Jesse Green, New York Times, 20 Dec. 2024
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Such shots reproduce García Márquez’s knack for wedding the ordinary to the extraordinary, and turning prosaic developments into enduring fables.Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 12 Dec. 2024
Noun
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The Green Wave's season has been a tale of streaks.Gord Magill, Newsweek, 21 Dec. 2024
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If only the state of the modern workplace were a Seussian tale.Ann Kowal Smith, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near allegory
Cite this Entry
“Allegory.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/allegory. Accessed 31 Dec. 2024.
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