What does "trope" mean?
Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.
Trope
/tɹəʊp/ noun, verb
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.
- Grammar: trope is listed as noun, verb.
- Nearest alternatives: figure of speech, busybodied, caliban, cantillation.
- Useful contrasts: literalness, novelty, originality.
- Usage evidence: Since children are more scared than amused by clowns, I wonder if some comedy trope of ours will become horror fodder in 100 years.
How to use "trope"
- Start with the primary definition, then check the part of speech before placing the word in a sentence.
- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "trope" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
- Does the word fit the sentence's grammar?
- Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
- Would a simpler synonym be clearer for the reader?
- Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?
Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "trope" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Before you rely on this definition
Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "trope" as the right word for your sentence.
If your draft is formal, technical, persuasive, or sensitive, compare "trope" with a nearby alternative so the final choice matches both meaning and reader expectation.
Compare nearby meanings
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- Use antonyms to check the boundary of the meaning and avoid accidental contrast.
- Use the example sentence to confirm the word behaves naturally in context.
- Keep the original wording when a replacement adds complexity without improving precision.
Definition decision workflow
1. Identify the role
Check whether "trope" is acting as noun, verb in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.
2. Test the nearest option
Compare it with "figure of speech" and other nearby choices to see whether the sentence needs a softer, stronger, or more familiar word.
3. Confirm with context
Use the example sentence below as an evidence check, then read your own sentence out loud to catch tone or rhythm problems.
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Final meaning check
Before publishing a sentence with "trope", ask whether the word helps the reader understand the idea faster. A precise word should reduce confusion, not simply make the sentence look more polished.
When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.
"You have to give director Colm McCarthy, a Scottish TV veteran making his feature film debut, and writer Mike Carey, adapting his own novel, credit for attempting the seemingly impossible task of doing something new with the zombie subgenre. And by blending it with the common YA [young adult] trope of a young female protagonist who leads the world into a new revolutionary era, they almost get there—largely thanks to newcomer [Sennia] Nanua, who presents her character's grappling with complex themes of identity and original sin with a childlike guilelessness."
- 2 language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense wordnet
- 3 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."
- 4 A figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a nonliteral or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor. rhetoric
"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."
- 5 Mathematical senses.; A tangent space meeting a quartic surface in a conic.
"Hence the section must be a conic passing through six nodes, that is, the plane touches the surface all along a conic, and is therefore a trope. The complete section of the surface by a trope is a conic counted twice; since this passes through six nodes, the trope must touch the six quadric tangent cones along generators which are tangents to the singular conic."
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 Mathematical senses.; The reciprocal of a node on a surface. archaic
"I take account of conical and biplanar nodes, or, as I call them, cnicnodes, and binodes; of pinch-points on the nodal curve; and of close-points and off-points on the cuspidal curve: viz. I assume that there are / C, cnicnodes, / B, binodes, / j, pinch-points, / #92;chi, close points, / #92;theta, off-points, / deferring for the present the explanation of these singularities. The same letters, accented, refer to the reciprocal singularities. Or using "trope" as the reciprocal term to node, these will be / C', cnictropes, / B', bitropes, / j', pinch-planes, / #92;chi', close-planes, / #92;theta', off-planes; / but these present themselves, not in the equations above referred to, but in the reciprocal equations."
- 7 Musical senses.; A short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music.
"Is not the trope of muſic, to avoid or ſlide from the cloſe or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric, of deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a ſtop in muſic, the ſame with the playing of light upon the water?"
- 8 Musical senses.; A pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.
"The eighty six-note segments were originally tabulated by Hauer and are the basis of his twelve-tone system. Each of [Josef Matthias] Hauer's tropes consists of two hexachords of mutually exclusive content, so that each pair of hexachords includes all twelve tones of the semitonal scale. Only eight hexachords may be associated in this way with their own transpositions. These generate the eight tropes illustrated in examples 141 and 128. Each of the remaining seventy-two hexachords must be paired with a dissimilar hexachord in order to form a trope."
- 9 Musical senses.; A cantillation pattern, or one of the marks that represents it. Judaism
"The Torah was chanted in a loud and strong voice so that all could hear. This cantillation of the Torah—trope—is shown by musical notation which serves grammatical and exegetical functions, ta'amay hamikra or ta'amay n'ginah. They put down in a final form an oral tradition that had been maintained for centuries. The Ashkenazim today have six systems of cantillation, each reflective of the texts and time of chanting. For example, on Tishah B'av the tunes are sad and doleful; on Purim the trope resembles a speedy narrative; the readings of Yamim Nora'im are quite majestic, and so on."
- 10 Philosophical senses.; Any of the ten arguments used in skepticism to refute dogmatism. Greek
"For [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel, ancient skepticism preserved the essence of the skeptical principle, and the tropes express this principle. In the earlier ten tropes, there is, according to Hegel, a lack of abstraction that becomes obvious in the fact that their diversity could be grasped under more general points of view. […] Sextus [Empiricus] explains that the first four tropes are based on the judging subject; these deal with the differences among animals, the differences among human beings, the differences that distinguish the various senses, and, finally, circumstantial differences."
- 11 Philosophical senses.; A particular instance of a property (such as the specific redness of a rose), as contrasted with a universal.
"Trope theory, though a minority view today, has been popular at various times throughout the history of philosophy, especially among medieval philosophers. Trope theory holds that properties and relations are themselves (unrepeatable) particulars. (Tropes are also called 'abstract particulars' – 'abstract' in the sense of fine, partial and diffuse, not in the sense of outside space and time.) Thus the redness of a particular billiard ball is a trope, located where the ball is and nowhere else. A different but exactly resembling billiard ball has a numerically different but exactly resembling redness trope. There is no colour property common to, or instantiated in, both balls (similarly all other properties and relations)."
Verb
- 1 To use, or embellish something with, a trope. transitive
"The motive for troping the introit was twofold. Firstly there was the desire to add colour, mystical fervour, to the restrained, matter-of-fact Roman rite. Besides this psychological reason there was a practical one. The introit was sung by the choir while the celebrants proceeded towards the altar to officiate at mass. This part of the ritual lent itself very readily to embellishment and expansion."
- 2 Senses relating chiefly to art or literature.; To represent something figuratively or metaphorically, especially as a literary motif. transitive
""So clomb this first grand Thief into God's Fold" (4.192), [John] Milton writes, thus troping Satan's transgression as neither deception, seduction, nor disobedience, though he presents it in those terms elsewhere, but rather as robbery."
- 3 Senses relating chiefly to art or literature.; To turn into, coin, or create a new trope. transitive
"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."
- 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
"By acting in loco parentis, the written word performs its own usurpations of generating authority and generated meanings. Therefore, after the brothers demolish the authority of the word as written, they ar able to substitute alternative authorities: the word as spoken, the word as added, the word as troped, the word as altered, the word as hidden."
Synonyms
All synonymsAntonyms
Example
"Since children are more scared than amused by clowns, I wonder if some comedy trope of ours will become horror fodder in 100 years."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "trope"?
Common synonyms include: figure of speech, busybodied, caliban, cantillation, celestially serene, cinderellas.
How do you use "trope" in a sentence?
Since children are more scared than amused by clowns, I wonder if some comedy trope of ours will become horror fodder in 100 years.
How do you pronounce "trope"?
Pronounced /tɹəʊp/.
Etymology
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.