‖ antiphrasis Rhet.
(ænˈtɪfrəsɪs)
[L., a. Gr. ἀντίϕρασις, f. ἀντιϕράζ-ειν to express by the opposite.]
A figure of speech by which words are used in a sense opposite to their proper meaning.
| 1533 More Debell. Salem v. Wks. 1557, 939/1 The fygure of ironye or antiphrasis. 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie 201 Antiphrasis or the Broad floute as..to [say to] a Negro..In good sooth ye are a faire one. 1650 Cromwell Lett. & Sp. (Carlyle) (1857) ii. 110 You are pastors, but it is by an antiphrasis, a minime pascendo. 1734 tr. Rollin's Anc. Hist. (1827) VII. xviii. i. 364 He was by antiphrasis surnamed Philopater. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. iv. (1856) 33 It was a bold antiphrasis that gave such a vernal title [Greenland] to this birth-place of icebergs. |