How to use trope in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Trope means something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif. Example: “The trope of the fallen angel as gettable titillator is this novel's original sin.”

Examples of trope by meaning

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

Contrary to the familiar trope that regulation kills innovation, Harding argues that in fact the political, moral and legal clarity provided by the Warnock commission spurred investment and economic growth.2024 May 11, John Thornhill, “More than human?”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8
“It’s full of classic tropes, but at the heart of it is a gorgeous love story with some genuinely funny moments,” she said.2025 April 4, Nadia Khomami, “Clickbait titles and cliffhangers: the mini TV serials capturing phone audiences”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

nounAn 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, Paul Studer, Le mystère d'Adam, an Anglo-Norman drama of the twelfth century
In the broadest sense tropes are all the later musical and textual accretions to the Franco-Roman nucleus of antiphonal and responsorial chants for mass and offices that we call Gregorian chant, a repertoire primarily fixed by the early 9th century.1998, Peter M. Lefferts, “trope”, in Paul E. Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, Joel T. Rosenthal, editors, Medieval England: An Encyclopedia...

nounA 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.1905, R[onald] W[illiam] H[enry] T[urnbull] Hudson, “The Quartic Surface”, in Kummer’s Quartic Surface, Cambridge: At the University Press...

nounA short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music.

If the antiphon comes to an end with the “Praeparatio” trope, a musical difficulty is presented by the trope’s cadence.1983, John G. Johnstone, “Beyond a Chant: ‘Tui sunt caeli’ and Its Tropes”, in Studies in the History of Music, volumes 1 (Music and...

nounA pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

These generate the eight tropes illustrated in examples 141 and 128.1963, George Perle, “Simultaneity”, in Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern...

nounA cantillation pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

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.1985, Steven M. Brown, “The Languages of Prayer”, in Stephen Garfinkel, editor, Higher and Higher: Making Jewish Prayer Part of Us...

nounA 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.2017, Brian Garrett, What is this Thing Called Metaphysics?, 3rd edition, Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, pages 55–56

verbTo use, or embellish something with, a trope.

The motive for troping the introit was twofold.1926, J[ames] M[idgley] Clark, “The Drama”, in The Abbey of St Gall as a Centre of Literature & Art, Cambridge: At the University Press...
The specific outcome of that 'story-telling' largely derives from how managers 'figure' their world – how they trope or 'figuratively turn' meanings.2015, Alun Munslow, “Managing the Past”, in Patricia Genoe McLaren, Albert J. Mills, Terrance G. Weatherbee, editors, The Routledge...

More sentences with trope

The trope of the fallen angel as gettable titillator is this novel's original sin.From the entry fallen angel
The movie's plot is the epitome of the enemies to friends to lovers trope.2023, Megan Freedman, "How When Harry Met Sally... remains a timeless romcom", The Medium (University of Toronto Mississauga), 13 February…. From the entry enemies-to-friends-to-lovers
A sparkling, warm romance that reminds us why the friends-to-lovers trope is superior!2022, Sarah Adams, praise blurb in Allison Ashley, Would You Rather, page 2. From the entry friends-to-lovers
Online violent threats relating to serophobia fell 35%, while slurs and tropes fell by 22%.2021 November 30, Gemma Joyce, “Understanding Online Serophobia: How Hate Speech Against People Living with HIV and AIDS is Evolving”, in…. From the entry serophobia
It’s a trope that dates back more than a decade, but the rise of Sen.2019 February 26, “The Return of the Inexplicable Republican Best Friend”, in FAIR.org. From the entry concern-trolling
Call me vanilla but I really don't get hateships or the enemies to lovers trope.2019 April 8, E'dmund Tia (@catboy_on_main), Twitter. From the entry hateship
Even a nascent fandom will begin to develop its own tropes.2013, Anne Jamison, Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World, BenBella Books, →ISBN. From the entry Sterek
The trope requires a distinction between untrustworthy, biased politicians and trustworthy, unbiased experts.2007, D. Wring, J. Green, R. Mortimore, Political Communications: The General Election Campaign of 2005, page 219. From the entry unspin
The notion of an unrecurable identity is articulated by Spivak through the temporal trope “always, already.”2004, Karudapuram Eachambadi Supriya, “Locating Memory of the British Raj: Inquiry, Criticism, and Entailments”, in Remembering Empire…. From the entry unrecurable
Other than the standard isekai trope like harems and overpoweredness, it was very unique in that the main protagonist summons boats.2025 September 22 – December 20, Ed Gomez, “The Quest for the Luxury Liner: Seize the Rich Life with a Ship-Summoning Skill in Another…. From the entry overpoweredness
Preferably also featuring Cerebus Syndrome trope, without OP powers and not focused on romance (or at least being a slowburn).2021 May 19, BloodyStrawberry, “Any fanfics like FREAKIN GENSOKYO?”, in Reddit, FanFiction, archived from the original on 17 Aug 2022. From the entry Cloudcuckoolander
Sadly its all to common that people don’t see the nuance in the conversation and fall on the istaphobe tropes.2021 October 29, radders2012, “Marvel - Eternals (2021)”, in Digital Spy, archived from the original on 30 Mar 2025. From the entry istaphobe
And with the Reylos, rose the Anti-Reylos who argued that the ship was indicative of racism and perpetuated abusive relationship tropes.2020, Victoria Song, "How Fandom Destroyed and Protected Me", Gizmodo Australia, 3 February 2021. From the entry Reylo
I wanted more time for the two together, especially more witty barbs, since I revel in an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope.2020 January 29, Nathalie Graham, “Sweet As Vanilla Ice Cream”, in The Stranger, page 29. From the entry enemies-to-friends-to-lovers
And that's not even getting into some of slash's more science-fictional tropes: soulbonds and telepathy, interspecies relationships; male pregnancy.2018, Francesca Coppa, “Slash/Drag: Appropriation and Visibility in the Age of Hamilton”, in Paul Booth, editor, A Companion to Media…. From the entry soulbond
When I started the Mafia Moguls series, I knew I wanted a friends-to-lovers trope—one of my absolute favorite storylines.2016, Jules Bennett, From Friend to Fake Fiancé, page 2. From the entry friends-to-lovers
Such tropes expose the extravagation whereby capitalism is decked out as the incontestable standard of human behavior and culture.2010, Paul A. Griffith, Afro-Caribbean Poetry and Ritual, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Preface, p. x. From the entry extravagation
In the early Graduals Benevento VI. 38 and 40, the apostrophus is common in syllabic passages in sequences, tropes and prosulae.2009, Iain Fenlon, Early Music History, page 66. From the entry apostrophus
Sward never met a trope he didn’t like.2004, Robert Sward, Bruce Meyer [Epilogue], “Epilogue”, in The collected poems of Robert Sward, 1957-2004, Black Moss Press, page 224. From the entry tropery
Trump as an imperialist out for blood or as an incompetent lackey of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, often stoking antisemitic tropes.2026 April 25, Steven Lee Myers, Stuart A. Thompson, “Iran’s Meme War Against Trump Ushers In a Future of ‘Slopaganda’”, in The New York…. From the entry out for blood
I love Helaemond, it has so many of my favorite tropes all wrapped up into one ship and I think they look beautiful together.2023 August 7, rabiosas, Reddit. From the entry Helaemond
As these examples indicate, the functioning of ritual symbols as “pivots” for the projection of efficacy between frames involves the use of symbols as tropes.2021 January 14, Marko Živković, Jamin Pelkey, James W. Fernandez, Tropological Thought and Action: Essays on the Poetics of Imagination…. From the entry tropic
Vaporwave and its more developed form, Simpsonwave, are of course concerned with an entirely different set of tropes–but they are no less hauntological for it.2019, Tom Whyman, “Oh, They Have the Internet on Computers Now?”, in Alfie Bown, Dan Bristow, editors, Post Memes: Seizing the Memes of…. From the entry hauntological
Another familiar trope, the slow burn, teases the reader as characters secretly pine for one another . . . for a long time.2018, Francesca DiPiazza, Fandom: Fic Writers, Vidders, Gamers, Artists, and Cosplayers, page 30. From the entry slow burn
I know that she never falls asleep before 2 a.m. and her favourite fanfic trope is enemies-to-lovers and she’s secretly a fan of Ariana Grande.2018, Alice Oseman, I Was Born for This, unnumbered page. From the entry enemies-to-lovers
The Buddha's perfect body is particularly important in these tropes, and it serves to persuade skeptics of his claims to ultimate authority.2012, John Powers, A Bull of a Man, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 22. From the entry skeptic
This trope appeals to audiences and award juries alike, while avoiding the obvious issue that there’s a lot of slumdogs who will never become millionaires.2010 December 9, Sarah Boslaugh, “Review:Waste Land (Arthouse Films, NR)”, in Play by Play, archived from the original on 23 Dec 2010. From the entry slumdog
Sometimes, the same tropes and stereotypes become so wide-spread that they get their own name – in case of misrepresentations of Russian culture, this name is klyukva (meaning “cranberry”).2024 February 27, Marya Belyaeva, “Truth VS Fiction: Russia in Pop Culture”, in ItmoNews, archived from the original on 18 Nov 2025. From the entry klyukva
Seeing your actions impacting the game's narrative, leading to various endings ranging from good to bad to terrible, is a commonly used trope in the gaming sphere.2024 August 11, Michael John-Day, “10 Terrifying True Endings In Video Games”, in WhatCulture. From the entry true ending

Meaning of trope

noun Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.
noun An addition (of dialogue, song, music, etc.) to a standard element of the liturgy, serving as an embellishment.
noun A figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a nonliteral or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor.

Full definition of trope

Questions about trope in a sentence

How do you use trope in a sentence?: Trope is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The trope of the fallen angel as gettable titillator is this novel's original sin.”
What is a short sentence with trope?: “Sward never met a trope he didn’t like.”
What does trope mean?: Trope means something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.

Adapted from Wiktionary: trope (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use trope in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/trope. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.