For Muhammad, the revelations were real and he believed the context was objective, but he was only able to describe the experience through metaphorical terms.

In human metaphorical terms, we pulled down our pants and spread our legs and invited it to explore.

In sport, a cap is a metaphorical term for a player's appearance on a select team, such as a national team.

In more general metaphorical terms, entropy may be seen as the irreversible tendency of a system, including the universe, toward increasing disorder and inertness.

Today the term may be used very loosely for objects with no colour contrast, and other, metaphorical, terms have developed, such as cameo appearance.

Boys, in the strict or a wider sense, are often informally referred to by analogous or metaphorical terms.

To this day, when the work is performed in places with relatively few Jews, it tends to be accepted on its own metaphorical terms.

Mind you, I am speaking in metaphorical terms, as if this were a human artist, preparing his canvases to be judged in the annual showing.

He speaks of that only in vague, metaphorical terms, as if he had come from another world like the world; save much larger.

Some people describe chemistry in metaphorical terms, such as "like cookie dough and vanilla ice cream", or "like a performance".