Metalepsis (from Ancient Greek: μετάληψις, metálēpsis) is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context. Ancient Roman academic Quintilian described metalepsis as an "intermediate step" to the original phrase, and its meaning depends upon its connection to the idiom from which it derives. Harold Bloom called metalepsis a "metonymy of a metonymy" because it uses part of an established trope to refer to the whole.

The word twikent (twice-kenned) is used for once-removed metalepsis involving kennings. If a kenning has more than three elements, it is said to be rekit ('extended'). Kennings of up to seven elements are recorded in skaldic verse. Snorri Sturluson characterises five-element kennings as an acceptable license but cautions against more extreme constructions:

Níunda er þat at reka til hinnar fimtu kenningar, er ór ættum er ef lengra er rekit; en þótt þat finnisk í fornskálda verka, þá látum vér þat nú ónýtt.

The ninth [license] is extending a kenning to the fifth determinant, but it is out of proportion if it is extended further. Even if it can be found in the works of ancient poets, we no longer tolerate it.

— Snorri Sturluson

The longest kenning found in skaldic poetry refers to a warrior:

nausta blakks hlé-mána gífrs drífu gim-slöngvir

fire-brandisher of blizzard of ogress of protection-moon of steed of boat-shed