trope UK /tɹəʊp/US /tɹoʊp/noun 10verb 5forms 3 noun10 •(rhetoric) A figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a nonliteral or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor.Since the tories have thus disappointed my hopes, / And will neither regard my figures nor tropes; I'll speech against peace while Dismal's my name, / And be a true whig, while I'm Not-in-game. — 1711 •Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif. •A particular instance of a property (such as the specific redness of a rose), as contrasted with a universal. •(Judaism) A cantillation pattern, or one of the marks that represents it. •An addition (of dialogue, song, music, etc.) to a standard element of the liturgy, serving as an embellishment.Usually known as 'tropes,' these interpolations consisted at first of but a few words; those of the Introit at the beginning of Mass on great festivals, however, often took the form of dialogues. — 1918 •Any of the ten arguments used in skepticism to refute dogmatism. •A short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music. •A pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique. •A tangent space meeting a quartic surface in a conic. •(no longer used) The reciprocal of a node on a surface. verb5 •To use, or embellish something with, a trope. •To represent something figuratively or metaphorically, especially as a literary motif. •To think or write in terms of tropes. •To analyse a work in terms of its literary tropes. •To turn into, coin, or create a new trope.I troped the World Wide Web as an especially dangerous research venue. "Don't pick up anything unless you know where it has been," I said. — 2009 formstroped · troping · tropes
