antiphrasis

See also: Antiphrasis

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ænˈtɪfrəsɪs/

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)‎^[1], 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.

Related terms

• antiphrastic (adj)

Translations

use of a word or phrase in a sense not in accord with its literal meaning

• Catalan: antífrasi f
• French: antiphrase (fr) f
• German: Antiphrasis f, Antiphrase f
• Greek: αντίφραση (el) f (antífrasi)
• Italian: antifrasi (it) f
• Polish: antyfraza (pl) f
• Portuguese: antífrase (pt) f
• Spanish: antífrasis f

Anagrams

• artisanship