The role of analogies and metaphors has played a significant part in the work on teaching and learning science. This commentary discusses three papers from this current issue that cover a wide range of studies in the spirit of conceptual metaphors--ranging from a study somewhat similar to "classical" conceptual change, to a teacher professional development approach informed by conceptual metaphor ideas, and finally to an elaborate theoretical perspective of "narrative framing." While there is much information on "conceptual metaphors in action" in science teaching and learning in these three papers and in the literature on conceptual metaphor in general, each of the papers' authors use the term conceptual metaphor in a different way, with each supported by a different theoretical perspective: for Rachael Lancor, the framework of metaphor theory; for Hans U. Fuchs, the theory of narrative framing and for Niebert and Gropengießer, experientialism as the theory of embodied cognition, with an emphasis on the mesocosm, the realm of lived experience. Treagust and Duit argue, based on their review of these three papers, that there is a need for a more precise and operationally defined use of the term conceptual metaphor--or at least for the authors to identify which kind of conceptual metaphor is being used in their studies. Consequently, they believe that in the field of research dealing with conceptual metaphors there needs to be a clear definition (or explication) of what this term denotes when used in a particular study.