Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Trope
Trope
,Noun.
[L.
tropus
, Gr. [GREEK], fr. [GREEK] 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.
☞ 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.
Webster 1828 Edition
Trope
TROPE
,Noun.
Tropes are chiefly of four kinds, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. Some authors make figure 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.