What is an oxymoron?

An oxymoron is a collocation of words that have contradictory or sharply incongruous meanings.

• conspicuous by his absence
• cruel kindness
• thunderous silence
• make haste slowly

• What is a trope?

Corbett 1971 491

Mish 1991 844

Context for this page:

• Concept module: oxymoron
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): O
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

© 2004 SIL International