Oxymoron vs Parallelism - What's the difference?
oxymoron | parallelism |
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.
The state or condition of being parallel; agreement in direction, tendency, or character.
The state of being in agreement or similarity; resemblance, correspondence, analogy.
*1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.29:
*:Plutarch (c.'' AD 46-120), in his ''Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , traced a parallelism between the most eminent men of the two countries.
A parallel position; the relation of parallels.
(rhetoric, grammar) The juxtaposition of two or more identical or equivalent syntactic constructions, especially those expressing the same sentiment with slight modifications, introduced for rhetorical effect.
(philosophy) The doctrine that matter and mind do not causally interact but that physiological events in the brain or body nonetheless occur simultaneously with matching events in the mind.
(legal) In antitrust law, the practice of competitors of raising prices by roughly the same amount at roughly the same time, without engaging in a formal agreement to do so.
(biology) Similarity of features between two species resulting from their having taken similar evolutionary paths following their initial divergence from a common ancestor.
(computing) The use of parallel methods in hardware or software.
As nouns the difference between oxymoron and parallelism
is that oxymoron is oxymoron (figure of speech) while parallelism is the state or condition of being parallel; agreement in direction, tendency, or character.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