tropology means the use of a trope (metaphor or figure of speech). It carries an Arena rating of 1438, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, tropology ranks #3,602 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #5,064 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #5,346 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #5,852 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words.
Why “tropology” is a great word
The interpretation of texts to derive their moral or figurative meaning. From Late Latin tropologia, from Late Greek τροπολογία (tropología), from τρόπος (trópos, "turn, figure of speech") + -λογία (-logía, "study, discourse"). Unlike hermeneutics, which provides the broad theory of interpretation, or literal interpretation, which clings to the surface, tropology is the deliberate turn away from the text's face to seek the lesson in its shadow. It is the desert father reading a poem as a manual for spiritual discipline, the allegorist finding in every beast a mirror for human vice, the quiet conviction that meaning itself is a conversion of the literal into the living—the true text not the ink, but the resonance it leaves in the soul.
Etymology
From Late Latin tropologia, from Late Greek τροπολογία (tropología), equivalent to trope + -ology.
noun
- The use of a trope (metaphor or figure of speech).
- The interpretation of scripture or other work in order to educe moral or figurative meaning; a treatise of such interpretation.e.g.“Where the syntax of propositions is broken, we see a very general principle of tropology that grants a priori that things like texts are replacements of things like authors.” — 1993, Miguel Tamen, Manners of Interpretation: The Ends of Argument in Literary Studies, page 58:
- A recurring motif or metaphor, a trope; an interplay of tropes.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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