[4]
It is therefore all the more necessary to point out
the distinction between the two. The name of trope
[p. 351]
is applied to the transference of expressions from
their natural and principal signification to another,
with a view to the embellishment of style or, as the
majority of grammarians define it, the transference
of words and phrases from the place which is strictly
theirs to another to which they do not properly
belong. A figure, on the other hand, as is clear from
the name itself, is the term employed when we give
our language a conformation other than the obvious
and ordinary.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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