Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🙏 Moral interpretation 📝 Study of metaphors
tropology

tropology

9.9
A way of reading religious texts that finds moral lessons for daily life
  • noun
  • /trəˈpɒlədʒi/
  • Formal
translation icon : tropología
  • Many sermons draw on tropology to emphasize ethical behavior and spiritual growth in their messages.

Examples

  • Rather, after reflecting on the allegorical information in the window, the viewer himself or herself is to come to a tropological conclusion, tropology being the indication through what is said to have been done of something else that ought to be done.

    Academic text (2011)

  • In terms of symbolic theology, the Church needs to be unveiled or interpreted by allegory, anagogy, and tropology.

    Academic text (2002)

  • The study of tropology helps individuals find moral guidance through the interpretation of religious texts.

  • The scholar's analysis of the scripture used tropology to highlight the importance of compassion and kindness.

Surface Forms

tropology singular
tropologies plural

Morphology

tropology = trope (opaque) = trope + ology

Although the word historically contains 'trope' and '-ology', the Christian theological sense has specialized into a meaning that is not directly predictable from the parts.

Etymology

Tropology comes from an old Greek word tropos meaning 'turn' and the ending -logy meaning 'study'. It was used for the 'turning' of scripture into moral lessons, so tropology means finding ethical guidance in religious texts.