a metaphor that has occurred so often that it has become a new meaning of the expression (e.g., `he is a snake' may once have been a metaphor but after years of use it has died and become a new sense of the word `snake')

an unoriginal metaphor, one that is in common use, e

A metaphor that has lost its original intensity through overuse.

A metaphor which has lost its meaning due to overuse e.g. 'to beat about the bush' or 'one fell swoop'. See metaphor.

A dead metaphor is a metaphor that through overuse has lost figurative value.