Technique
Tenor and Vehicle
Coined by I.A. Richards in The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) to analyse how metaphors work. The 'ground' is the shared qualities that make the comparison valid.
Definition
I.A. Richards's terms for the components of a metaphor: the tenor is the subject, the vehicle is the image applied to it.
Example
In 'my love is a rose': love = tenor (what is spoken of); rose = vehicle (the image illuminating it).