English Dictionary

trope

/tɹəʊp/

noun

(art, literature) Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature, such as the ‘mad scientist’ of horror movies or the use of the phrase ‘once upon a time’ as an introduction to fairy tales; a motif.

The use of the hero's journey is a common trope in storytelling.

意味（1）

(art, literature) Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature, such as the ‘mad scientist’ of horror movies or the use of the phrase ‘once upon a time’ as an introduction to fairy tales; a motif.

It is likewiſe witty, for […] a trope familiar to this author, you have here a compariſon of—a woman's chaſtity to a piece of porcelain,—her honour to a gaudy robe,—her prayers to a fantaſtical diſguiſe,—her heart to a trinket; and all theſe together to her lap-dog, and that founded on one lucky circumſtance (a malicious critic would perhaps diſcern or imagine more) by which theſe things, how unlike ſoever in other reſpects, may be compared, the impreſſion they make on the mind of a fine lady.

意味（2）

(medieval Christianity) 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.

意味（3）

(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,

Since the tories have thus disappointed my hopes, And will neither regard my figures nor tropes;

意味（4）

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.

意味（5）

(archaic) The reciprocal of a node on a surface.

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,

𝜒, close points,

𝜃, 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,

𝜒', close-planes,

𝜃', off-planes;

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, 𝜒, close points, 𝜃, 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, 𝜒', close-planes, 𝜃', off-planes; but these present themselves, not in the equations above referred to, but in the reciprocal equations.

意味（6）

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?

意味（7）

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.

意味（8）

(Judaism) A cantillation pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

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.

意味（9）

(Greek philosophy) Any of the ten arguments used in skepticism to refute dogmatism.

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.

意味（10）

(metaphysics) 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).