Trōpe, n.

n. [Fr. trope, It. & Sp. tropo, Lat. tropus, Gr. τρόπος, from τρέπειν, to turn.] (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. (b.) The 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.