From Richard Nordquist,
Your Guide to Grammar & Composition.
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Definition:

Rhetorical device that produces a shift in the meaning of words--traditionally contrasted with a scheme, which changes only the shape of a phrase.

Etymology:

From the Greek, "a turn"

Examples:

• Metaphor:
  His life is a garden, our friends are greed
  Our friends are water, our friends are weeds
  The government’s a gardener
  He pimps for profit
  And makes money off of shovels and hoes
  His drugs are pesticides that kill the good and the bad
  Either way the product’s tainted
  The ax hits the ground covered in blood."
  (Calm, "Anti-Smiles")


• metonymy:
  "The piano has been drinking
  My necktie's asleep
  The combo went back to New York, and left me all alone
  The jukebox has to take a leak
  Have you noticed that the carpet needs a haircut?
  And the spotlight looks just like a prison break
  And the telephone's out of cigarettes
  As usual the balcony's on the make
  And the piano has been drinking, heavily
  The piano has been drinking
  And he's on the hard stuff tonight."
  (Tom Waits, "The Piano Has Been Drinking")


• irony:
  "The First World War, boys,
  It came and it went;
  The reason for fighting
  I never did get.
  But I learned to accept it,
  Accept it with pride;
  For you don't count the dead
  When God's on your side.
  
  "The Second World War, boys,
  It came to an end.
  We forgave the Germans,
  And then we were friends.
  Though they murdered six million,
  In the ovens they fried,
  The Germans now, too, have
  God on their side."
  (Bob Dylan, "With God on Our Side")