Word.ws English Dictionary

antiphrasis

/ænˈtɪfrəsɪs/

antiphrasis noun: use of a word or phrase in a sense opposite of its literal meaning, especially for ironic or humorous effect.

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.
    • By the turn of this century the situation concerning logic was quite simple: there was basically one logic (classical logic) which could be used (by changing the set of proper axioms) in various situations. Logic was about pure reasoning. Brouwer’s criticism destroyed this dream of unity: classical...1991 June 20, Jean-Yves Girard, “On the unity of logic”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), number 59, North-Holland, page 201

antiphrasis meaning in Urdu

antiphrasis in Urdu

طعنہ, طنز

Forms of antiphrasis

pluralantiphrases

Origin of antiphrasis

Borrowed from Late Latin antiphrasis, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ἀντίφρασις (antíphrasis) (< phrazein "declare").

Questions about antiphrasis

What does antiphrasis mean?
Antiphrasis means use of a word or phrase in a sense opposite of its literal meaning, especially for ironic or humorous effect.
What is antiphrasis in Urdu?
Antiphrasis in Urdu is طعنہ, طنز. See Antiphrasis meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is antiphrasis?
Antiphrasis is a noun.
How do you pronounce antiphrasis?
Antiphrasis is pronounced /ænˈtɪfrəsɪs/.
What is the plural of antiphrasis?
The plural of antiphrasis is antiphrases.

Words near antiphrasis in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antiphrasis (page history and authors); antiphrasis (Urdu Wiktionary) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Eleanorrrrrrrrrr-antiphrasis.wav.

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