Trope

The Technical Stuff:
A trope is a figure of speech using words in nonliteral ways, such as a metaphor.

Example: 
"The new word-that-must-be-used is 'trope,' meaning metaphor, example, literary device, picture--and maybe whatever else the writer wants it to mean.
"The main meaning of 'trope' is 'figure of speech.' . . .
"But as I’ve noted before, the sense has been extended to something vaguer and less effective, like 'theme,' 'motif' or 'image.'
"One interesting point: according to our article archive, 'trope' has appeared 91 times in articles in the past year. A search of NYTimes.com, however, shows a staggering 4,100 uses in the past year--which suggests that blogs and reader comments may be the biggest sources of 'trope' inflation."
(Philip B. Corbett, "More Weary Words." The New York Times, Nov. 10, 2009)