Oxymoron

This article is about the contradiction in terms. For other uses, see Oxymoron (disambiguation).
Oxymorons are words that communicate contradictions.

An oxymoron (plurals: oxymorons and oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a self-contradiction. As a rhetorical device, an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a paradox.[1][2] A general meaning of "contradiction in terms" is recorded by the 1902 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.[3]

The term oxymoron is first recorded as Latinized Greek oxymōrum, in Maurus Servius Honoratus (c. AD 400);[4] it is derived from the Greek word ὀξύς oksús "sharp, keen, pointed"[5] and μωρός mōros "dull, stupid, foolish";[6] as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish".[7] The word oxymoron is autological, i.e., it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The Greek compound word ὀξύμωρον oksýmōron, which would correspond to the Latin formation, does not appear in any Ancient Greek works prior to the formation of the Latin term.[8]

  1. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879). "A Latin Dictionary". Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 27 October 2015. acutely silly: oxymora verba, expressions which at first sight appear absurd, but which contain a concealed point; so especially of such apparently contradictory assertions as: cum tacent clamant, etc.
  2. ^ Jebb, Richard C. (1900). "Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus". Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part III: The Antigone. Cambridge University Press. p. 567. The phrase is an 'ὀξύμωρον' (a paradox with a point).
  3. ^ "A figure of speech in which a pair of opposed or markedly contradictory terms are placed in conjunction for emphasis" OED
  4. ^ Honoratus on Aeneid 7.295, num capti potuere capi (in the voice of Juno) "Could captured slaves not be enslaved again?" (William 1910): capti potuere capi, cum felle dictum est: nam si hoc removeas, erit oxymorum. "the captured can be captured: said with bitterness, for if you were to remove that, it would be oxymorum." see H. Klingenberg in Birkmann et al. (ed.), FS Werner, de Gruyter (1997), p. 143.
  5. ^ ὀξύς in Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Jones, Sir Henry Stuart, with the assistance of McKenzie, Roderick. Oxford: Clarendon Press. In the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
  6. ^ μωρός in Liddell and Scott. Retrieved 26 February 2013.
  7. ^ ὀξύμωρος in Liddell and Scott. Retrieved 26 February 2013. "Pointedly foolish: a witty saying, the more pointed from being paradoxical or seemingly absurd."
  8. ^ "oxymoron". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 26 February 2013.