different between oxymoron vs hyperbole

oxymoron

English

Etymology

First attested in the 17th century, noun use of 5th century Latin oxym?rum (adj), neut. nom. form of oxym?rus (adj), from Ancient Greek ???????? (oxúm?ros), compound of ???? (oxús, sharp, keen, pointed) (English oxy-, as in oxygen) + ????? (m?rós, dull, stupid, foolish) (English moron (stupid person)). Literally "sharp-dull", "keen-stupid", or "pointed-foolish" – itself an oxymoron, hence autological; compare sophomore (literally wise fool), influenced by similar analysis. The compound form ???????? (oxúm?ron) is not found in the extant Ancient Greek sources.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /?ks??m????n/
  • (US) enPR: äk-s?-môr?-än, äk-s?-môr?-än, IPA(key): /??ksi?m???n/, /?ks??m???n/

Noun

oxymoron (plural oxymorons or oxymora)

  1. (rhetoric) A figure of speech in which two words or phrases with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect.
    • 1996, John Sinclair, "Culture and Trade: Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations", in Emile G. McAnany, Kenton T. Wilkinson (eds.), Mass Media and Free Trade: NAFTA and the Cultural Industries, University of Texas Press
      For Theodor Adorno and his colleagues at the Frankfurt School who coined the term, "culture industry" was an oxymoron, intended to set up a critical contrast between the exploitative, repetitive mode of industrial mass production under capitalism and the associations of transformative power and aesthetico-moral transcendence that the concept of culture carried in the 1940s, when it still meant "high" culture.
  2. (loosely, sometimes proscribed) A contradiction in terms.

Usage notes

  • Historically, an oxymoron was "a paradox with a point", or "pointedly foolish: a witty saying, the more pointed from being paradoxical or seemingly absurd" at first glance. Its deliberate purpose was to underscore a point or to draw attention to a concealed point. The common vernacular use of oxymoron as simply a contradiction in terms is considered incorrect by some speakers and writers, and is perhaps best avoided in certain contexts.

Antonyms

  • pleonasm, redundancy

Derived terms

  • oxymoronic
  • oxymoronically
  • oxymoronicity
  • oxymoronicness

Related terms

Translations

See also

  • Category:English oxymorons
  • contranym

References

Further reading

  • Oxymoron on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Lee’s Complete Oxymoron List, with discussion of classification (archive)

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hyperbole

English

Etymology

From Latin hyperbol?, from Ancient Greek ???????? (huperbol?, excess, exaggeration), from ???? (hupér, above) + ????? (báll?, I throw). Doublet of hyperbola.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ha??p??b?li/
  • Homophones: hyperbolae

Noun

hyperbole (countable and uncountable, plural hyperboles)

  1. (uncountable, rhetoric, literature) Deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly extreme overstatement.
    • 1837, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Legends of the Province House
      The great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence.
    • c. 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, Productive Scholarship
      Of course the hymn has come to us from somewhere else, but I do not know from where; and the average native of our village firmly believes that it is indigenous to our own soil—which it can not be, unless it deals in hyperbole, for the nearest approach to a river in our neighborhood is the village pond.
    • 1987, Donald Trump, Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal, p. 58.
      The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. ..People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.
    • 2001, Tom Bentley, Daniel Stedman Jones, The Moral Universe
      The perennial problem, especially for the BBC, has been to reconcile the hyperbole-driven agenda of newspapers with the requirement of balance, which is crucial to the public service remit.
  2. (countable) An instance or example of such overstatement.
    • 1843, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The Gates of Somnauth
      The honourable gentleman forces us to hear a good deal of this detestable rhetoric; and then he asks why, if the secretaries of the Nizam and the King of Oude use all these tropes and hyperboles, Lord Ellenborough should not indulge in the same sort of eloquence?
  3. (countable, obsolete) A hyperbola.

Synonyms

  • (rhetoric): overstatement, exaggeration, auxesis

Antonyms

  • (rhetoric): See understatement

Derived terms

  • hyperbolic

Related terms

  • hyperbola

Translations

See also

  • adynaton

French

Etymology

From Latin hyperbole, from Ancient Greek ???????? (huperbol?, excess, exaggeration), from ??? (hupé, above) + ????? (báll?, I throw).

Pronunciation

  • (mute h) IPA(key): /i.p??.b?l/
  • Homophone: hyperboles
  • Hyphenation: hy?per?bole

Noun

hyperbole f (plural hyperboles)

  1. (rhetoric) hyperbole
  2. (geometry) hyperbola

Related terms

  • hyperbolique

Descendants

  • ? Turkish: hiperbol

Further reading

  • “hyperbole” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ???????? (huperbol?, excess, exaggeration), from ??? (hupé, above) + ????? (báll?, I throw).

Pronunciation

  • (Classical) IPA(key): /hy?per.bo.le?/, [h??p?rb???e?]
  • (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /i?per.bo.le/, [i?p?rb?l?]

Noun

hyperbol? f (genitive hyperbol?s); first declension

  1. exaggeration; hyperbole
  2. ablative singular of hyperbol?
  3. vocative singular of hyperbol?

Declension

First-declension noun (Greek-type).

References

  • hyperbole in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • hyperbole in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

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