Trope

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Trope \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.
         [1913 Webster]
  
               In his frequent, long, and tedious speeches, it has
               been said that a trope never passed his lips.
                                                    --Bancroft.
         [1913 Webster]
  
     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.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  trope
       n : language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense [syn: {figure
           of speech}, {figure}, {image}]