Oxymoron vs Absurd - What's the difference?
oxymoron | absurd |
A figure of speech in which two words with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect.
* A famous example is Milton, Paradise Lost , Book 1, ll. 63-4:
* Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet , Act 1. Scene 1, in which Romeo utters nine oxymora in just six lines of soliloquy:
(general) A contradiction in terms.
Contrary to reason or propriety; obviously and flatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates of common sense; logically contradictory; nonsensical; ridiculous; silly.
* 1591 , (William Shakespeare), , V-iv
* ca. 1710 , (Alexander Pope)
* , chapter=17
, title= (obsolete) Inharmonious; dissonant.
Having no rational or orderly relationship to people's lives; meaningless; lacking order or value.
* (rfdate) Adults have condemned them to live in what must seem like an absurd universe. - Joseph Featherstone
Dealing with absurdism.
(obsolete) An absurdity.
(philosophy) The opposition between the human search for meaning in life and the inability to find any; the state or condition in which man exists in an irrational universe and his life has no meaning outside of his existence.
As a noun oxymoron
is oxymoron (figure of speech).As an adjective absurd is
absurd.oxymoron
English
(wikipedia oxymoron)Noun
(en-noun)- No light, but rather darkness visible
- Serv'd only to discover sights of woe
- Why then, O brawling love', O ' loving hate ,
- O anything, from nothing first create,
- O heavy lightness'! ' Serious vanity !
- Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
- Feather of lead', '''bright smoke''', '''cold fire''', ' sick health ,
- Still-waking sleep , that is not what it is!
- This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Usage notes
* Historically, an (term) was "a (paradox) with a point",Jebb, Sir Richard (1900).Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part III: The Antigone]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. where the contradiction seems absurd at first glance, and yet is deliberate, its purpose being to underscore a point or to draw attention to a concealed point. The modern usage of (term) as a synonym for the simpler contradiction in terms is considered incorrect by some speakers and writers, and is perhaps best avoided in certain contexts. (See also the [[w:oxymoron, Wikipedia article].)
Derived terms
* oxymoronic * oxymoronically * oxymoronicnessSee also
*References
External links
*List of oxymorons*
Lee’s Complete Oxymoron List], with discussion of classification ([http://web.archive.org/web/20080617020051/http://lee.critesclan.com/oxymorons.html archive) English autological terms English oxymorons
absurd
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- This proffer is absurd and reasonless.
- This phrase absurd to call a villain great
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=“Perhaps it is because I have been excommunicated. It's absurd , but I feel like the Jackdaw of Rheims.” ¶ She winced and bowed her head. Each time that he spoke flippantly of the Church he caused her pain.}}