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.
☞ 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.