Trope vs. Motif — What's the Difference?

A figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression

A recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work.

A figure of speech using words in nonliteral ways, such as a metaphor.

A dominant theme or central idea.

A word or phrase interpolated as an embellishment in the sung parts of certain medieval liturgies.

(Music) A short rhythmic or melodic passage that is repeated or evoked in various parts of a composition.

A theme, motif, plot, or literary device that commonly recurs within a genre or work of fiction, especially when considered clichéd

A repeated figure or design in architecture or decoration.

An often recurring idea or image

A recurrent pattern either of molecular sequence, usually of nucleotides or amino acids in proteins, or of molecular structure that usually corresponds to specific biological activity.

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.

A recurring or dominant element; an artistic theme.

(medieval Christianity) An addition (of dialogue, song, music, etc.) to a standard element of the liturgy, serving as an embellishment.

(music) A short melodic or lyrical passage that is repeated in several parts of a work.

(rhetoric) A figure of speech in which words or phrases are used with a nonliteral or figurative meaning, such as a metaphor.

A decorative figure that is repeated in a design or pattern.

(geometry) Mathematical senses.

(dressmaking) A decorative appliqué design or figure, as of lace or velvet, used in trimming.

A tangent space meeting a quartic surface in a conic.

(crystallography) The physical object or objects repeated at each point of a lattice. Usually atoms or molecules.

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

(chess) A basic element of a move in terms of why the piece moves and how it supports the fulfilment of a stipulation.

(music) Musical senses.

(biochemistry) In a nucleotide or aminoacid sequence, pattern that is widespread and has, or is conjectured to have, a biological significance.

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

Motive.

A pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

In literature and the fine arts, a salient feature or element of a composition or work; esp., the theme, or central or dominant feature;

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

A decorative appliqué design or figure, as of lace or velvet, used in trimming; also, a repeated design.

(philosophy) Philosophical senses.

A design that consists of recurring shapes or colors

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

A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music

(metaphysics) A particular instance of a property (such as the specific redness of a rose), as contrasted with a universal.

A unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work;

(transitive) To use, or embellish something with, a trope.

(transitive) Senses relating chiefly to art or literature.

To represent something figuratively or metaphorically, especially as a literary motif.

To turn into, coin, or create a new trope.

To analyse a work in terms of its literary tropes.

(intransitive) To think or write in terms of tropes.

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.

Language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense