Of or pertaining to the tropics; characteristic of, or incident to, the tropics; being within the tropics; as, tropical climate; tropical latitudes; tropical heat; tropical diseases. [1913 Webster]
Rhetorically changed from its exact original sense; being of the nature of a trope; figurative; metaphorical. Jer. Taylor. [1913 Webster]
"The foundation of all parables is some analogy or similitude between the tropical or allusive part of the parable and the thing intended by it." [1913 Webster]

Tropic month. See Lunar month, under Month. -- Tropic year, the solar year; the period occupied by the sun in passing from one tropic or one equinox to the same again, having a mean length of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46.0 seconds, which is 20 minutes, 23.3 seconds shorter than the sidereal year, on account of the precession of the equinoxes.

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

tropical, adj.
1 of, peculiar to, or suggesting the Tropics (tropical fish; tropical diseases).
2 very hot; passionate, luxuriant.
3 of or by way of a trope.

Idiom

tropical year see YEAR 1.

Derivative

tropically adv.

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THESAURUS

tropical

aestival, blood-hot, blood-warm, calid, equatorial, genial, hot, luke, lukewarm, mild, room-temperature, subtropical, sultry, summery, sunny, sunshiny, temperate, tepid, thermal, thermic, toasty, torrid, tropic, unfrozen, warm, warm as toast, warmish

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ROGET THESAURUS

tropical

Heat

N heat, caloric, temperature, warmth, fervor, calidity, incalescence, incandescence, glow, flush, fever, hectic, phlogiston, fire, spark, scintillation, flash, flame, blaze, bonfire, firework, pyrotechnics, pyrotechny, wildfire, sheet of fire, lambent flame, devouring element, adiathermancy, recalescence, summer, dog days, canicular days, baking, heat, white heat, tropical heat, Afric heat, Bengal heat, summer heat, blood heat, sirocco, simoom, broiling sun, insolation, warming, sun, pyrology, thermology, thermotics, thermodynamics, thermometer, calorie, gram-calorie, small calorie, kilocalorie, kilogram calorie, large calorie, British Thermal Unit, B, T, U, therm, quad, degrees Kelvin, kelvins, degrees centigrade, degrees Celsius, degrees Fahrenheit, hot, warm, mild, genial, tepid, lukewarm, unfrozen, thermal, thermic, calorific, fervent, fervid, ardent, aglow, sunny, torrid, tropical, estival, canicular, steamy, close, sultry, stifling, stuffy, suffocating, oppressive, reeking, baking, red hot, white hot, smoking hot, burning, hot, piping hot, like a furnace, like an oven, burning, hot as fire, hot as pepper, hot enough to roast an ox, hot enough to boil an egg, fiery, incandescent, incalescent, candent, ebullient, glowing, smoking, live, on fire, dazzling, in flames, blazing, in a blaze, alight, afire, ablaze, unquenched, unextinguished, smoldering, in a heat, in a glow, in a fever, in a perspiration, in a sweat, sudorific, sweltering, sweltered, blood hot, blood warm, warm as a toast, warm as wool, volcanic, plutonic, igneous, isothermal, isothermic, isotheral, not a breath of air, whirlwinds of tempestuous fire.

Metaphor

N metaphor, figure of speech, facon de parler, way of speaking, colloquialism, phrase, figure, trope, metaphor, enallage, catachresis, metonymy, synecdoche, autonomasia, irony, figurativeness, image, imagery, metalepsis, type, anagoge, simile, personification, prosopopoeia, allegory, apologue, parable, fable, allusion, adumbration, application, exaggeration, hyperbole, association, association of ideas (analogy), metaphorical, figurative, catachrestical, typical, tralatitious, parabolic, allegorical, allusive, anagogical, ironical, colloquial, tropical, so to speak, so to say, so to express oneself, as it were, mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.

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