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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

trope.

Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/tɹəʊp/Received-Pronunciation[tɹ̥əʊp]Received-Pronunciation/tɹoʊp/General-American
  1. Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.

  2. An addition (of dialogue, song, music, etc.) to a standard element of the liturgy, serving as an embellishment.

  3. A figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a nonliteral or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor.

    rhetoric
  4. Mathematical senses. A tangent space meeting a quartic surface in a conic.

  5. Mathematical senses. The reciprocal of a node on a surface.

    archaic
  6. Musical senses. A short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music.

  7. Musical senses. A pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

  8. Musical senses. A cantillation pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

    Judaism
  9. Philosophical senses. Any of the ten arguments used in skepticism to refute dogmatism.

    Greek
  10. Philosophical senses. A particular instance of a property (such as the specific redness of a rose), as contrasted with a universal.

Where this word comes from

From Latin tropus, from Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos, “a manner, style, turn, way; a trope or figure of speech; a mode in music; a mode or mood in logic”), related to τροπή (tropḗ, “solstice; trope; turn”) and τρέπειν (trépein, “to turn”); compare turn of phrase. The verb is derived from the noun.

verb/tɹəʊp/Received-Pronunciation[tɹ̥əʊp]Received-Pronunciation/tɹoʊp/General-American
  1. To use, or embellish something with, a trope.

    transitive
  2. Senses relating chiefly to art or literature. To represent something figuratively or metaphorically, especially as a literary motif.

    transitive
  3. Senses relating chiefly to art or literature. To turn into, coin, or create a new trope.

    transitive
  4. Senses relating chiefly to art or literature. To analyse a work in terms of its literary tropes.

    transitive
  5. To think or write in terms of tropes.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Latin tropus, from Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos, “a manner, style, turn, way; a trope or figure of speech; a mode in music; a mode or mood in logic”), related to τροπή (tropḗ, “solstice; trope; turn”) and τρέπειν (trépein, “to turn”); compare turn of phrase. The verb is derived from the noun.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.