ABSTRACT
As a rule of thumb, a figure of speech is the use of words or a phrase in a way that isn’t strictly true; the words have been ‘turned away’ from their literal sense and don’t mean what a dictionary might say they mean. The technical term for figurative uses of language clearly reflects this: figures
of speech of all kinds are called tropes, a term originating from the ancient Greek word tropos, meaning ‘turn, direction, course or way’. There are lots of tropes/figures of speech, and the subject that used to be called rhetoric studied and named all the different sorts. Figures of speech are not restricted to written texts: people use them all the time in everyday conversation. To show how widespread they are, here are seven everyday examples.
