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Is there a word to describe when a part becomes the name for the whole, particularly in a jargon sense?

For example, a door to door salesman at the end of the day might talk about how many "doors" he visited, rather than houses, or a pathology nurse might talk about "doing veins" rather seeing patients?

I read a definition along these lines years and years ago, but I've completely forgotten the word. If possible I'm trying to find this same word again.

Bamboo
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    Try searching "part for the whole": you should come up with metonymy. – Tim Lymington Jun 20 '16 at 10:49
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    See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche – Max Williams Jun 20 '16 at 10:59
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    I've got no idea how this could be a duplicate of the linked question – Bamboo Jun 20 '16 at 11:06
  • Well the linked question explains synecdoche & metonymy, so it (albeit indirectly and implicitly) answers yours @phill. – k1eran Jun 20 '16 at 11:08
  • They're related, but clearly distinct questions. – Bamboo Jun 20 '16 at 11:21
  • Pars pro toto seems to be an established term in English, although it is three words. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jun 20 '16 at 14:26
  • if you use synecdoche to refer to metonymies, is this a synecdoche? – njzk2 Jun 20 '16 at 15:36
  • "Marking something as a duplicate does not necessarily mean that the accepted answer answers all variations of a question; nor even that the closed question is precisely the same as another — that would normally result in the questions being merged. It generally means that one of the answers provides enough information to answer the closed question, in much the same way as a reference book might provide examples which need to be adapted slightly to the problem in hand." (from: http://meta.english.stackexchange.com/a/5239/14073) – MetaEd Jun 22 '16 at 19:48

2 Answers2

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I'd say that would be a synecdoche.

A synecdoche (/sɪˈnɛkdəkiː/, si-nek-də-kee; from Greek συνεκδοχή, synekdoche, lit. "simultaneous understanding")1 is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something refers to the whole of something or vice versa

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche

Community
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Bookeater
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The more common word used is metonymy. The classic examples of that would be calling a car "wheels" or a police officer a "copper" (what their badges were made of), or military officers "brass" (their button material).

me·ton·y·my məˈtänəmē/

noun: metonymy; plural noun: metonymies

the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.

Jeffiekins
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