Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use oxymoron in a sentence

10 example sentences · noun

Oxymoron means a figure of speech in which two words or phrases with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect. Example: “A hard border is a real possibility, and a frictionless border is almost an oxymoron.”

Examples of oxymoron by meaning

nounA contradiction in terms.

  • “Stable inflation is an oxymoron because it means it’s not stable,” Shelton told CNN in a recent interview.2024 October 31, Matt Egan, “Trump’s former pick to join the Federal Reserve has proposed a radical solution to solve inflation”, in CNN

More sentences with oxymoron

  • A hard border is a real possibility, and a frictionless border is almost an oxymoron.From the entry frictionless
  • Like Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” it’s an oxymoron.2017, Bob Berman, Zapped: From Infrared to X-rays, the Curious History of Invisible Light, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, pages 8-9. From the entry light
  • We don't debate whether American beer's an oxymoron or not -- that's just you :).2001 November 2, Zoë, “Re: Warning to Rob and the rest of RMMP.”, in rec.music.makers.percussion (Usenet). From the entry Usenettian
  • Who is sneakier, untrustworthier, and all round more devious that the newest oxymoron, the "Clinton Justice Department"?1999 January 26, Docky Wocky [pseudonym], “Big Brother loses one”, in alt.current-events.clinton (Usenet). From the entry untrustworthier
  • Remember: figuring out the un-figurable is the ultimate oxymoron.2006, Thomas O’Donnell, I Am Who I Am: An Autobiography of God, page 21. From the entry figurable
  • Thus, the figure of oxymoron offers whiteness studies a generative interpretive approach that promotes antiracism and antiwhiteness by making visible the hauntings of whiteness.2017, Tammie M. Kennedy, Joyce Irene Middleton, Krista Ratcliffe, editors, Rhetorics of Whiteness: Postracial Hauntings in Popular…. From the entry antiwhiteness
  • Enterprise mashup may be an oxymoron.2010, Jonathon Keats, Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 112. From the entry seditious
  • But of Lee you hear hardly anything at all; she is nearly as famous for her reclusiveness (now there’s an oxymoron) as J.2006 February 4, Erica Wagner, “First word: People don't love Harper Lee—they love her work”, in Times Online, London, retrieved 29 Jun 2007. From the entry reclusiveness
  • President Obama is O.K. with this (he calls it “prolonged detention”), but he wants to make sure it is carried out — here comes the oxymoron — fairly and nonabusively.2009 June 23, Bob Herbert, “Who Are We?”, in New York Times. From the entry nonabusively

Meaning of oxymoron

  1. noun A figure of speech in which two words or phrases with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect.
  2. noun A contradiction in terms.

Full definition of oxymoron

Questions about oxymoron in a sentence

How do you use oxymoron in a sentence?
Oxymoron is used as a noun. For example: “A hard border is a real possibility, and a frictionless border is almost an oxymoron.”
What is a short sentence with oxymoron?
“Enterprise mashup may be an oxymoron.”
What does oxymoron mean?
Oxymoron means a figure of speech in which two words or phrases with opposing meanings are used together intentionally for effect.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oxymoron (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use oxymoron in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/oxymoron. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.