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A binary opposition (also binary system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system of language and/or thought by which two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. [ 1 ]
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.
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 ...
Anaximander posited that every element had an opposite, or was connected to an opposite (water is cold, fire is hot). Thus, the material world was said to be composed of an infinite, boundless apeiron from which arose the elements (earth, air, fire, water) and pairs of opposites (hot/cold, wet/dry).
A cuckquean is the wife of an adulterous husband (or partner for unmarried companions), and the gender-opposite of a cuckold. [1] In evolutionary biology, the term is also applied to females who are investing parental effort in offspring that are not genetically their own. Similar prying within a family is called wittoldry. [2]
Reverse psychology is a technique involving the assertion of a belief or behavior that is opposite to the one desired, with the expectation that this approach will encourage the subject of the persuasion to do what is actually desired.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, the opposite category or dual category C op of a given category C is formed by reversing the morphisms, i.e. interchanging the source and target of each morphism. Doing the reversal twice yields the original category, so the opposite of an opposite category is the original category itself.