HomeServicesBlogDictionariesContactSpanish Course
← Back to search

Meaning of oxymorous | Babel Free

Adjective CEFR B2

Definitions

Synonym of oxymoronic.

rare

Examples

“The great Teacher was well aware of this in his choice of parables (Matt. 13; Luk. 11: 1—13 et al.), gnomes (Matt. 5), oxymorous statements (Matt. 5: 29, 30), every day incidents and events (Luk. 10, 25—37), common figures (Joh. 16: 20, 21), an easy , unscholastic style of speaking, rapid change of manner according to the changes in his thought and the requirements of the occasion. […] In this concrete sense we hold that the forms of truth have vital relation to application, as witness Christ’s use of parables, figures, gnomes, oxymorous address and the like.”
“I met a graceful English maid / Upon the Shwe Dagon / Her age was twenty-one, she said, / Her hair was sort of roan, / She had a soulful tearful air, / (It may have been a ruse,) / And on her feet she wore a pair / Of oxymorous shoes / […]”
“The terms are oxymorous, of course, and an oxymoron may be regarded as a condensed paradox; but it is just the paradoxical situation of man with which the poet is concerned.”
“[…] usual biological allusions, like "lungs." "Golden tears" is oxymorous. Death is so much a part and parcel of life that every moment on earth is just a moment of waiting for death.”
“Philosophy can achieve its ultimate goal only by becoming “popularized” or, in Cieszkowski’s oxymorous expression, “Sie muss sich in die Tiefe verflachen.””
“One-year and two-year secretarial courses were offered, including an oxymorous liberal arts-secretarial "church secretarial certificate" for those who wished to combine somewhat contradictory disciplines.”
“Agreement even seemed to cheer him up, and from there our discussion began to take on a more relaxed and customary shape and to gravitate towards our usual oxymorous small-talk on large topics.”
“The oxymorous yoking together of the words “selfish” and “generosity” is a highly artistic way of expressing the tension of discernible action and inner motive.”
“I have not said much about Musica Ficta's multiple puns, parodies, oxymorous games with language.”
“Thus, in this introit to the songs of redemptive self-annihilation, the poet already juxtaposes in these oxymorous collocations words that intimate the paradox of his self-sacrifice.”
“It starts to address the oppressive, inhuman and alienated aspects of this advancement. A celebration of repression, even. This oxymorous statement provides the backbone to Takamatsu’s architecture.”
“The planet is a global village, if we may adop^([sic]) this oxymorous expression which has now become quite a commonplace also in scientific discourses.”
“The words “love” and “rainbow” would disappear from his oxymorous hymn of love and hate, which would thus be reduced to a lament of hate.”
“Above considerations reveal Russell’s agnosticism moderated, of course, by the specifications "For the moment" and "though perhaps not permanently", which explains also his oxymorous satisfaction, that mathematical philosophy, through the logical theory of arithmetic, puts off saying, what we mean by numbers, by ’1’ and ’2’ and so on, omission for which , however, he, also, accused the formalists.”
“This intertextual relationship between the uses of the term, however, may generate, intentionally or unintentionally, a type of negativity, which would rely on the oxymorous nature of the concept of ‘katharsis through pity and fear’ and not simply exist despite it.”
“What is more, in its effort to maintain the myth of free education and satisfy superficially the growing social demand for attainment of tertiary qualifications, the state creates more and more universities around the country, the academic areas of which show little, if any, connection with market demands and student inclinations (Massalas, 2002). This practice has triggered opposition even from the very academic community on grounds of being dually oxymorous: the state enlarges its financial responsibilities in running new universities, when it does so insufficiently for the already existed.”
“The idea of critical self-awareness and the oxymorous nature of participant observation, which leads most times to the observation of the participant and hence the participation of the participant (Tedlock 1991), all blend together within the ethnographic scene of encounter which in turn becomes the ethnographic dialogue of the self and other.”
“In its light-hearted way, this article brought up to date Osbert Lancaster’s earlier list of historical styles for the domestic interior in Homes Sweet Homes by offering the apparently oxymorous ‘Contemporary Period’. The modern(ist) interior had become another period.”
“The king was, in Philippe Buc’s formulation, “oxymorous” (roi oxymore) – “gracious”, “wise” and “terrible” at the same time.”
“For the seemingly oxymorous formula “only the wealthy can become poor” [“può diventare povero solo chi è ricco”], as a paraphrase of H. Grundmann, Movimenti religiosi nel Medioevo. […]”
“It is not uncommon for medical or literary writers in antiquity to conceive of a disease as an animate entity that takes residence and feeds on the patient’s body; in line with this tradition, Aretaeus explores the idea of disease qua lived experience to an (almost oxymorous) extreme: epilepsy literally lives “side by side” (ξυμβιοῖ) with the patient, and ceases to “exist” only when death takes them both (μέσφι θανάτου).”
“Thanks to the flexibility of the fabrics ant their attitude to be functionalized, membrane architecture seeks even a stronger link with nature, almost looking for a new oxymorous dimension of natural artificiality, where designers will be able to explore a blurred boundary between ecofacts and artefacts, imitating the adaptivity and transformability of natural systems for the enhancement of the building skin.”

CEFR level

B2
Upper Intermediate
This word is part of the CEFR B2 vocabulary — upper intermediate level.

See also

Learn this word in context

See oxymorous used in real conversations inside our free language course.

Start Free Course