ANTONOMASIA, from ἀντι and νόμα, a figure of rhetoric by which a substitution is used for a proper name. It may be either the employment of a patronymic, a characteristic epithet, or the substitution of another name for that of the individual. Thus Homer uses "Pelides" and "Atrides" for Achilles and Agamemnon; Aristotle is designated "the Stagyrte;" Pope designates Charles XII.
and Alexander the Great "the Swede," and "Macedonia's madman;" Thomson terms Charles "the frantic Alexander of the north."