Word.ws English Dictionary

antiphrases

antiphrases is the plural of antiphrasis.

antiphrases is the plural of antiphrase.

Meaning of antiphrasis

Noun

antiphrasis (countable and uncountable, plural antiphrases)

  1. (rhetoric) Use of a word or phrase in a sense opposite of its literal meaning, especially for ironic or humorous effect.
    • When they called him “bad as hell”, they weren’t calling him evil. It was antiphrasis.

Meaning of antiphrase

Noun

antiphrase (plural antiphrases)

  1. A word or phrase used in a sense that is different to its literal or usual meaning.
    • [T]he first man came right up to me and held out his hand in the European manner of greeting, save only that it was the left hand instead of the right, and in an English the most mutilated and full of antiphrases I had ever heard said that he was my friend[.]1946, Jack McLaren, The Oldest Inhabitants, quoted in An Australian Muster, page 10

Questions about antiphrases

What is antiphrases the plural of?
Antiphrases is the plural of antiphrasis.

Words near antiphrases in the dictionary

  1. antiphotodamage
  2. antiphotography
  3. antiphoton
  4. antiphotons
  5. antiphrase
  6. antiphrases
  7. antiphrasis
  8. antiphrastic
  9. antiphrastical
  10. antiphrastically
  11. antiphthisic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antiphrases (page history and authors); antiphrasis (page history and authors); antiphrase (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “antiphrases.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/antiphrases. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.