Question

What is an antonym for an oxymoron?

Answer 1

Hint: Antonyms are two or more words that have very dissimilar meanings.
The word oxymoron is derived from the Greek words ‘Oxus’ meaning ‘sharp’ and ‘Moros’ meaning ‘dull or foolish’. The word ‘oxymoron’ is an oxymoron in itself.

Complete answer:
To find the antonym of ‘oxymoron’ we first need to understand the meaning of the word itself. Its origin comes from the Greek words ‘Oxus’ and ‘Moros’ which mean ‘sharp’ and ‘foolish’ respectively. Hence, the meaning of the word comes out to be ‘sharply foolish’. But this does not make sense, as a person cannot be sharp and foolish at the same time. These are two completely contrasting words.

Hence, an oxymoron is a literary device in which when words and phrases are placed together, they create paradoxes or contradictions. The contradictions seem foolish, but after sharp observation, we understand their deeper meaning.

There are two words which are very close antonyms for oxymoron. They are pleonasm and tautology.
Pleonasm is basically the use of more words than we need to use. These extra words are unnecessary. For e.g. I blinked my eyes. I shrugged my shoulders. We do not need to say ‘my eyes’ and ‘my shoulders’ in these sentence. The word ‘blink’ and ‘shrug’ are always used for eyes and shoulders respectively and hence, mentioning these body parts is unnecessary.

Tautology is a literary device in which we use the same exact words twice. It could either have the same usage or context and it may also be different. But the words will always mean the same and will not contradict each other like in the case of ‘oxymoron’. For e.g. It is what it is. The students will take turns after each turn to perform their experiment.

Note: Tautology and pleonasm sound very similar, have very similar functions and are hence confused a lot. The following are two examples with the same words which might help us understand the difference in their use.
- The angry mob attacked the minister’s office. This is pleonasm, as the word ‘angry’ is unnecessary.
- The mob is getting angry. This is tautology as the word ‘angry’ is not unnecessary, but it is emphasizing the meaning of ‘mob’. Mob is a crowd that is already angry.