Antiphrasis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An antiphrasis (
/ænˈtɪfrəsɪs/; from the Greek: ἀντί, antí, "opposite" and φράσις, phrásis, "diction") is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used to mean the opposite of its usual sense, especially ironically.
[edit] Examples
Ptolemy IV of Egypt: "By some historians [ Ptolemy IV of Egypt] is said to have poisoned his father, whence he received the surname of Philopater, by antiphrasis." [1]
"It was a bold antiphrasis that gave such a vernal title [Greenland] to this birth-place of icebergs."[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Rollin's Anc. Hist. (1827) VII. XVIII. i. 202.
- ^ KANE Grinnell Exp. iv. (1856) 33. From Oxford English Dictionary
