Noun

(uncountable, figure of speech) The use of a word or phrase to refer to something that it isn’t, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described, but in the case of English without the words like'' or ''as , which would imply a simile.

* What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors''', metonymies, and; anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are '''metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.'' — Friedrich Nietzsche, ''On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense , 1870, translated by Daniel Beazeale, 1979.

(countable, rhetoric) The word or phrase used in this way. An implied comparison.

Noun

(es)

A self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa.

"This sentence is false" is a paradox .

* {{quote-book, 1962, Abraham Wolf, Textbook of Logic, page=255 citation

, passage=According to one version of an ancient paradox , an Athenian is supposed to say "I am a liar." It is then argued that if the statement is true, then he is telling the truth, and is therefore not a liar

A counterintuitive conclusion or outcome.

It is an interesting paradox that drinking a lot of water can often make you feel thirsty.

* 1983 May 21, (Ronald Reagan), "",

The most fundamental paradox is that if we're never to use force, we must be prepared to use it and to use it successfully.

A claim that two apparently contradictory ideas are true.(jump)

Not having a fashion is a fashion; that's a paradox .

* {{quote-book, 1879, , The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan], year_published=1941, chapter=[[w:The Pirates of Penzance, The Pirates of Penzance]

, passage=How quaint the ways of Paradox ! / At common sense she gaily mocks! / Though counting in the usual way years twenty-one I've been alive, / Yet reck'ning by my natal day, / Yet reck'ning by my natal day, / I am a little boy of five!}}

A person or thing having contradictory properties.

He is a paradox ; you would not expect him in that political party.

* {{quote-book, 1999, Virginia Henley, A Year and a Day citation

, passage=You are a paradox of bitch and angel.}}

An unanswerable question or difficult puzzle, particularly one which leads to a deeper truth.

* {{quote-book, 1994, James Joseph Pirkl, Transgenerational Design, page=3 citation

, passage=And only by dismantling our preconceptions of age can we be free to understand the paradox : How young are the old?}}

(obsolete) A statement which is difficult to believe, or which goes against general belief.

* {{quote-book, 1594, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, section=

, passage=Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner / transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the / force of honesty can translate beauty into his / likeness: this was sometime a paradox , but now the / time gives it proof. }}

* 1615 , Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia , Richmond 1957, p. 3

they contended to make that Maxim'', that there is no faith to be held with Infidels, a meere and absurd ''Paradox [...].

(uncountable) The use of counterintuitive or contradictory statements (paradoxes) in speech or writing.

* {{quote-book, 1906, (Richard Holt Hutton), Brief Literary Criticisms, page=40 citation

, passage=The need for paradox is no doubt rooted deep in the very nature of the use we make of language. }}

(uncountable, philosophy) A state in which one is logically compelled to contradict oneself.

* {{quote-book, 1866, Edward Poste, Aristotle on Fallacies, Or, The Sophistici Elenchi, page=43 citation

, passage=Thus, like modern disputants, they aimed either to confute the respondent or to land him in paradox . }}

(uncountable, psychotherapy) The practice of giving instructions that are opposed to the therapist's actual intent, with the intention that the client will disobey or be unable to obey.(jump)

* {{quote-book, 1988, Martin Lakin, Ethical Issues in the Psychotherapies, page=103 citation

, passage=Defiance-based paradox is employed so that the family will actively oppose and deliberately sabotage the prescription. }}