Over the last decades, metaphor has been subject to intensive research within widely varied disciplines, but there has been less focus on the study of metaphor as a linguistic utterance. To a translator metaphor is a very intriguing practical linguistic problem. How do we translate, for instance, the Danish metaphor blæksprutte? In this article, the authors discuss to what extent ordinary dictionaries may be of use (can you look up the metaphor blæksprutte?) and describe the database of metaphors that they are establishing with examples from economic and political texts in Danish, French and Italian. The database is organized as a thesaurus in which metaphorical utterances are categorized under Meaning and Source domain and in which translators may find inspiration when they have to render metaphors in the three languages.