Pars pro toto, Latin for "a part (taken) for the whole", is a figure of speech where the name of a portion of an object, place, or concept represents its entirety. It is distinct from a merism, which is a reference to a whole by an enumeration of parts; metonymy, where an object, place, or concept is called by something or some place associated with the object, place, or concept; or synecdoche, which can refer both to this and its inverse of the whole representing a part.
In the context of language, pars pro toto means that something is named after a part of it, or after a limited characteristic, in itself not necessarily representative for the whole.
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