trope
pronunciation
How to pronounce trope in British English:
UK [trəʊp]
How to pronounce trope in American English:
US [troʊp]
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- Noun:
- language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense
Word Origin
- trope
- trope: see troubadour
- trope (n.)
- 1530s, from Latin tropus "a figure of speech," from Greek tropos "a turn, direction, course, way; manner, fashion," in rhetoric, "turn or figure of speech," related to trope "a turning" and trepein "to turn," from PIE root trep- (2) "to turn" (cognates: Sanskrit trapate "is ashamed, confused," properly "turns away in shame;" Latin trepit "he turns"). Technically, in rhetoric, "a figure of speech which consists in the use of a word or phrase in a sense other than that which is proper to it" [OED], "as when we call a stupid fellow an ass, or a shrewd man a fox" [Century Dictionary].
Example
- 1. They are the epitome of in-one-ear-and-out-the-other , which was my mother 's trope for a failure to connect .
- 2. Pythagoras believed the souls of poets passed into swans , a fitting entombment that turns the tattered phrase " poetry in motion " into a truly lyrical trope .
- 3. Another task is to wean labour off its keynesian warnings that cuts will tip the economy back into recession , a particular trope of mr balls .