\Trope\, n. [L. tropus, Gr. ?, fr. ? to turn. See
{Torture}, and cf. {Trophy}, {Tropic}, {Troubadour},
{Trover}.] (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; a figure of speech.
(b) The word or expression so used.
          In his frequent, long, and tedious speeches, it has
          been said that a trope never passed his lips.
                                               --Bancroft.
Note: 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.