One way in which metaphor and metonymy can interact, and thus one kind of the more general phenomenon known as metaphtonymy.

To illustrate, consider the following example: She caught the Prime Minister's ear and persuaded him to accept her plan. This example is licenced by the metaphor attention is a moving physical entity, according to which attention is understood as a moving entity that has to be 'caught' (the minister's ear). However, within this metaphor there is also the metonymy ear for attention, in which ear is the body part that functions as the vehicle for the concept of attention in the metaphor. In this example, the instance of metonymy is 'inside' the metaphor.