According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that Dumbo should be able to fly. Its ears are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. Dumbo, of course, flies anyway. Because Dumbo doesn’t care what you think is impossible.
The term is metonym. It is when you use a characteristic or associated attribute of a thing as the name of that thing. A classic example would be “the crown” when talking about the monarch or “The Whitehouse” when talking about the president.