antiphrasis

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word antiphrasis. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word antiphrasis, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say antiphrasis in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word antiphrasis you have here. The definition of the word antiphrasis will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofantiphrasis, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
See also: Antiphrasis

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin antiphrasis, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ἀντίφρασις (antíphrasis) (< phrazein "declare").

Pronunciation

Noun

antiphrasis (countable and uncountable, plural antiphrases)

  1. (rhetoric) Use of a word or phrase in a sense not in accord with its literal meaning, especially for ironic or humorous effect; especially, use of an antonym with synonymic intent.
    Hypernym: nonsynonymy
    Coordinate terms: antonymy, synonymy, parasynonymy
    When they called him “bad as hell”, they weren’t calling him evil. It was antiphrasis.
    • 1991 June 20, Jean-Yves Girard, “On the unity of logic”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), number 59, North-Holland, page 201:
      By the turn of this century the situation concerning logic was quite simple: there was basically one logic (classical logic) which could be used (by changing the set of proper axioms) in various situations. Logic was about pure reasoning. Brouwer’s criticism destroyed this dream of unity: classical logic was not suited for constructive features and therefore it lost its universality. Now by the end of the century we are faced with an incredible number of logics-some of them only named ‘logic’ by antiphrasis, some of them introduced on serious grounds.

Translations

Anagrams