Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Antiphrasis is the rhetorical device of saying the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that it is obvious what the true intention is. [1] Some authors treat and use antiphrasis just as irony, euphemism or litotes. [2] When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, [3] having opposite meanings ...
Auto-antonym: A word that is encoded with opposing meanings. Absurdity; Excusable negligence: If a behavior is excusable, it is not negligence. Gödel's incompleteness theorems: and Tarski's undefinability theorem; Ignore all rules: To obey this rule, it is necessary to ignore it. Impossible object: A type of optical illusion.
The term antonym (and the related antonymy) is commonly taken to be synonymous with opposite, but antonym also has other more restricted meanings. Graded (or gradable) antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite and which lie on a continuous spectrum (hot, cold).
Antithesis (pl.: antitheses; Greek for "setting opposite", from ἀντι-"against" and θέσις "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together for contrasting effect. [1] [2]
Tricolon – the pattern of three phrases in parallel, found commonly in Western writing after Cicero—for example, the kitten had white fur, blue eyes, and a pink tongue. Trivium – grammar, rhetoric, and logic taught in schools during the medieval period. Tropes – a figure of speech that uses a word aside from its literal meaning.
For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").
Apophasis is rarely literal; instead, it conveys meaning through implications that may depend on this context. As an example of how meaning shifts, the English phrase "needless to say" invokes shared understanding, but its actual meaning depends on whether that understanding was really shared.
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition and analysis that involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.