Meaning of oxymoron | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A figure of speech in which two words or phrases with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect.
   rhetoric
2. A contradiction in terms.
   broadly, proscribed, sometimes

Equivalents

Examples

“In Oxymoron jarring phrases join And terms opposed in harmony combine.”

“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.”

“During the past few years, some 200 class-action suits have been filed against food manufacturers, charging them with misuse of the adjective in marketing such edible oxymorons as “natural” Cheetos Puffs, “all-natural” Sun Chips, “all-natural” Naked Juice, “100 percent all-natural” Tyson chicken nuggets and so forth.”

““Stable inflation is an oxymoron because it means it’s not stable,” Shelton told CNN in a recent interview.”

CEFR level