4. (Music, other) music a part of the action of a clavichord consisting of a small piece of metal that strikes the string to produce a note. 5. on a tangent at a tangent on a completely different or divergent course, esp of thought: to go off at a tangent.
Synonyms: clichÃ©, bromide, platitude, truism. These nouns denote an expression or idea that has lost its originality or force through overuse: a short story weakened by clichÃ©s; the bromide that we are what we eat; a eulogy full of platitudes; a once-original thought that is now a truism.
In literature, a trope is a familiar and repeated symbol, meme, theme, motif, style, character or thing that permeates a particular type of literature. They are usually tied heavily to genre. For example, tropes in horror literature and film include the mad scientist or a dark and stormy night. Tropes can also be plots or events, such as the science fiction trope of an alien invasion that is deterred at the last minute. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trope (literature)). Story is not automatically story, especially when dealing with genre and its tropes. Trope is a rather difficult concept to grasp, seeing as it includes so many different elements in literature, let us start with a definition: