‘寓喻’ (yù yù) is a literary noun meaning ‘allegorical metaphor’ — a figure of speech where abstract ideas or moral lessons are conveyed through concrete, often symbolic, imagery, especially involving animals or natural phenomena. The character 寓 (yù) means ‘to reside’ or ‘to contain implicitly’, suggesting something hidden within; 喻 (yù) means ‘to illustrate’ or ‘to make clear through analogy’. Together, they denote a metaphor that doesn’t just compare but *houses* deeper meaning — like Aesop’s fables, where a fox’s cunning ‘contains’ a lesson about deception.

This term appears mainly in literary analysis, classical Chinese texts, and discussions of rhetoric. It’s more formal and scholarly than everyday words like 比喻 (bǐyù, ‘metaphor’) or 象征 (xiàngzhēng, ‘symbolism’), and it emphasizes intentionality: the surface story deliberately encloses a moral or philosophical truth. While not limited to animals, many famous examples — such as the cicada symbolizing transience or the crane representing longevity — anchor it in the Animals domain.