How to use paradox in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun

Paradox means an apparently self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa. Example: “"This sentence is false" is a paradox.”

Examples of paradox by meaning

nounAn apparently self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa.

"This sentence is false" is a paradox.
The active sense of living which we all enjoy, before reflection shatters our instinctive world for us, is self-luminous and suggests no paradoxes.1909, William James, A pluralistic universe. Hibbert lectures, page 347

nounA counterintuitive conclusion or outcome.

It is an interesting paradox that drinking a lot of water can often make you feel thirsty.
The most fundamental paradox is that if we're never to use force, we must be prepared to use it and to use it successfully.1983 May 21, Ronald Reagan, Presidential Radio Address

nounA claim that two apparently contradictory ideas are true.

Not having a fashion is a fashion; that's a paradox.

nounA person or thing having contradictory properties.

He is a paradox; you would not expect him in that political party.
You are a paradox of bitch and angel.1999, Virginia Henley, A Year and a Day, →ISBN, page 315

nounAn unanswerable question or difficult puzzle, particularly one which leads to a deeper truth.

And only by dismantling our preconceptions of age can we be free to understand the paradox: How young are the old?1994, James Joseph Pirkl, Transgenerational Design, →ISBN, page 3

nounThe use of counterintuitive or contradictory statements (paradoxes) in speech or writing.

The need for paradox is no doubt rooted deep in the very nature of the use we make of language.1906, Richard Holt Hutton, Brief Literary Criticisms, page 40

nounThe practice of giving instructions that are opposed to the therapist's actual intent, with the intention that the...

Defiance-based paradox is employed so that the family will actively oppose and deliberately sabotage the prescription.1988, Martin Lakin, Ethical Issues in the Psychotherapies, →ISBN, page 103

More sentences with paradox

Graham Priest has argued the liar paradox is a true dialetheia.From the entry liar paradox
The surrealities of life are the paradoxes thereof.From the entry surreality
For example, there is a famous paradox from one of the first philosophers who called themselves philosophers.2023, Gilles Deleuze, translated by Charles J[oseph] Stivale, “Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought / 02”, in The Deleuze Seminars, archived…. From the entry Zenon
“The paradox of StudyTube is you make a reputation around being a normal and relatable student.2021 October 5, Tom Haynes, quoting Jack Edwards, “What happens to studytubers once they stop studying?”, in i-D, archived from the…. From the entry StudyTube
You find yourself there.’ That, surely, is a paradox of Kaufmanesque dimensions.2013, Judith Buchanan, editor, The Writer on Film: Screening Literary Authorship, Springer, →ISBN, page 175. From the entry Kaufmanesque
All truth is held in paradox so that you may know who you are.2002, Lillian M. Hall, The Atomic Priesthood, Stone People Enterprises Incorporated, page 482. From the entry omniperfect
This hypothesis goes by many names, including group resistence, the threshold effect, and the gender paradox.2001 September 27, Terrie E. Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, Michael Rutter, Phil A. Silva, Sex Differences in Antisocial Behaviour: Conduct…. From the entry logic
Let us return to the hypothesis that generated the paradox: All nonblack things are nonravens.2001, Peter Achinstein, The book of evidence. From the entry nonblack
This type of paradox is fundamental to the Buddhist episteme and informs all aspects of Buddhist discourse.1999, Takeuchi Yoshinori, Buddhist Spirituality: Later China, Korea, Japan, and The Modern World, The Crossroad Publishing Company…. From the entry omnilinguality
This otherhood, itself based on solidarity with other human beings, provides the difference which evades paradox.1994, Norbert Wiley, The Semiotic Self, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 131. From the entry otherhood
When examined from a historical perspective, the contemporary phenomenon of Jungism presents numerous paradoxes.1994, Richard Noll, The Jung Cult, Fontana Press, published 1996, page 7. From the entry Jungism
A paradox arises when we ask, "Is the word 'heterological' heterological." If it is, it is not.1993, Noel Balzer -, The Human Being as a Logical Thinker, →ISBN, page 70. From the entry heterological
We mentioned previously that certain paradoxes in set theory arose shortly after Cantor's works were published.1972, Peter W. Zehna, Robert Leo Johnson, Elements of Set Theory, Allyn & Bacon, page 4. From the entry set theory
Yet it was that unusual paradox, a happy contretemps--for me at least.1932, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XII, in Pirates of Venus, published 1934. From the entry contretemps
But the paradox remains that Corvo might not impossibly be right.1907, Israel Zangwill, Italian Fantasies, page 167. From the entry all cats are grey in the dark
The superficialities, the incoherencies, the paradoxes, the deliria, the amnesiæ, are well brought into evidence.1906, Leonardo Bianchi, James H. Macdonald, A Text‐Book of Psychiatry for Physicians and Students, William Wood & Company, Part III…. From the entry amnesiæ
Thus Hempel's paradox, later indeed popularized by Hempel, is a nice example of Stigler's law: nothing is named after its inventor.2020, Ferenc Csatári, Measurement and Meaning, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 83. From the entry Hempel's paradox
Unless one final Schlafly paradox gets in the way.2016 September 6, Timothy Stanley, “How Phyllis Schlafly gave us Sarah Palin”, in CNN. From the entry antithesis
Paradoxology permeates life with a unifying spirit, even where paradox interrupts, overturning our expectations, messing up our plans.2015, Miriam Therese Winter, Paradoxology: Spirituality in a Quantum Universe. From the entry paradoxology
An axiomatisation of Hurkens's paradox in dependent type theory is given without assuming any impredicative feature of said type theory..2015, Arnaud Spiwack, “Notes on axiomatising Hurkens's Paradox”, in arXiv. From the entry axiomatisation
Here again is the heroic figure, here again are the Macaulayesque paradoxes and the noisy but lucid style.2015 December 8, George Levine, Boundaries of Fiction, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 143. From the entry Macaulayesque
Either way, proleptics is for them an art of paradox.2012, Harrison C. White, Identity and Control, page 282. From the entry proleptics
In a seeming paradox, however, broken taboos may not always carry the heavy repercussions of violations of a social more.2008, Barak A. Salmoni, Paula Holmes-Eber, “[Dimension Five – Belief Systems] Some Features of Belief Systems”, in Operational Culture for…. From the entry more
When we were asked to what one should apply the name “what is not”, we were ensnared in total paradox.2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown and 250d-e, Sophist. From the entry ensnare
The central paradox of Linton's writing was her inability, or unwillingness, to imagine an asexual friendship between women.2004, Martha Vicinus, Intimate Friends: women who loved women, 1778-1928, page 150. From the entry asexual
Indeed, the paradox is at first glance perplexing because one might expect the critical message of raï to be anti-Islamist.2003: Tullia Magrini, Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean — chapter 14: “‘And She Sang a New Song’: Gender and Music on…. From the entry raï
So the subtext, the meaning of the entire album, when preceded by its quotation, its symbol, yields a paradox.2001 October 1, Howard Mirowitz, “Why is L&T in Quotation Marks?”, in rec.music.dylan (Usenet). From the entry quine
The older idea that informationlessness was to be equated with uniform distributions is vulnerable to the transformational paradoxes.1998, Dov M. Gabbay, Philippe Smets, Handbook of Defeasible Reasoning and Uncertainty Management, page 122. From the entry informationlessness
Ahhh, the ultimate paradox of time travel.1996 October 21, Daniel Smith, “First Contact - ET”, in rec.arts.startrek.tech (Usenet). From the entry excuse my français
It seems like a paradox, people whose job it is to be unobtrusive or semiobtrusive honoring themselves for their efforts.1988 April 15, David Fremon, “Extras”, in Chicago Reader, archived from the original on 06 Mar 2016. From the entry semiobtrusive

Meaning of paradox

noun An apparently self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa.
noun A counterintuitive conclusion or outcome.
noun A claim that two apparently contradictory ideas are true.

Full definition of paradox

Questions about paradox in a sentence

How do you use paradox in a sentence?: Paradox is used as a noun. For example: “"This sentence is false" is a paradox.”
What is a short sentence with paradox?: “"This sentence is false" is a paradox.”
What does paradox mean?: Paradox means an apparently self-contradictory statement, which can only be true if it is false, and vice versa.

Adapted from Wiktionary: paradox (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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