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Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
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).
In Hawaiian, for example, aloha is translated both as "hello" and as "goodbye", but the essential meaning of the word is "love", whether used as a greeting or farewell. Similarly, 안녕 ( annyeong ) in Korean can mean both "hello" and "goodbye" but the central meaning is "peace".
Antonyms are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example: hot ↔ cold, large ↔ small, thick ↔ thin, synonym ↔ antonym; Hypernyms and hyponyms are words that refer to, respectively, a general category and a specific instance of that category. For example, vehicle is a hypernym of car, and car is a hyponym of vehicle.
The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective–noun combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. One classic example of the use of oxymorons in English literature can be found in this example from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo strings together thirteen in a row: [11]
The term "antithesis" in rhetoric goes back to the 4th century BC, for example Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1410a, in which he gives a series of examples. An antithesis can be a simple statement contrasting two things, using a parallel structure: I defended the Republic as a young man; I shall not desert her now that I am old. (Cicero, 2nd Philippic, 2 ...
(v.) to bathe, or give a bath to, example have a bath (US: take a bath meaning bathe) (n.) plumbing fixture for bathing *(US: bathtub) (n.) the act of bathing (n.) a bathroom (esp. a half bath which has a sink and toilet but no shower stall or bathtub, or a 3/4 bath which has a sink, toilet, and shower stall, but no bathtub) bathroom
When the antiphrasal use is very common, the word can become an auto-antonym, [3] having opposite meanings depending on context. For example, Spanish dichoso [ 4 ] originally meant "fortunate, blissful" as in tierra dichosa , "fortunate land", but it acquired the ironic and colloquial meaning of "infortunate, bothersome" as in ¡Dichosas moscas ...