Epithet

From Latin epitheton, from Greek, from epitithenai meaning “to add”, an adjective or adjectival cluster that is associated with a particular person or thing and that usually seems to capture their prominent characteristics. For example, “Ethelred the unready”, or “fleet-footed Achilles” in Pope's version of The Iliad. The “transferred epithet” is a special category where the adjective cannot normally be applied to the noun but where its use becomes justified by the added effect thus achieved. For example, in his “Ode to a Nightingale” Keats brilliantly transfers the sense of embalming to darkness:

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, …