Definitions for: Trope

[n] language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense

Webster (1913) Definition: Trope, n. [L. tropus, Gr. ?, fr. ? to turn. See
Torture, and cf. Trophy, Tropic, Troubadour,
Trover.] (Rhet.)
(a) The use of a word or expression in a different sense from
that which properly belongs to it; the use of a word or
expression as changed from the original signification to
another, for the sake of giving life or emphasis to an
idea; a figure of speech.
(b) The word or expression so used.

In his frequent, long, and tedious speeches, it has
been said that a trope never passed his lips.
--Bancroft.

Note: Tropes are chiefly of four kinds: metaphor, metonymy,
synecdoche, and irony. Some authors make figures the
genus, of which trope is a species; others make them
different things, defining trope to be a change of
sense, and figure to be any ornament, except what
becomes so by such change.

Synonyms: figure, figure of speech, image

See Also: exaggeration, hyperbole, irony, kenning, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, personification, prosopopoeia, rhetorical device, simile, synecdoche, zeugma

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