Some incarnation of word2vec, as they are suited for replacements (you can try googling node2vec, though you need to double check if it is the thing; if it is word2vec-like compression of the incidence matrix - it is what you are looking for). As in:
"a small, fluffy rissun run on a tree" -> "rissun" is something like a squirrel.
If you want to have something more straightforward, look at adjacency matrix squared ("friends of friends") or some other measure of two nodes having a lot of common neighbours.
In a week I am having more time (and tutoring for 2 weeks a students on word2vec/glove visualizations), so I would be happy to talk about it.
Some rough idea would be high correlation of their neighbour weights, but low direct edge, but that doesn't work in some corner cases. More in https://kozikow.com/2016/07/10/visualizing-relationships-bet... .