Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word contradictio.

Examples

  • Utopia is non-existent, dystopia a contradictio in adjecto by Franz J.T. Lee on Sunday, Jan 25, 2009 at 12: 00: 08 PM

    Concerning President Chavez of Venezuela, both Bush and Obama sang the same Swan's Song 2009

  • GOD means “Great Ordinary Delusion” (contradictio in adjecto intended).

    Please Tell Me What “God” Means Sean 2007

  • Modesty in a great mind would, no doubt, be pleasing to the world; but, unluckily, it is a contradictio in adjecto.

    The Art of Literature 2004

  • In the Greek of Plato and Aristotle, in the Latin of Augustine or Aquinas an attempted translation of our richly evocative con - temporary phrase “metaphysical imagination” would result in a virtually meaningless expression, lacking as much in connotation as in denotation, and amounting almost to a contradictio in adjecto.

    METAPHYSICAL IMAGINATION MICHAEL MORAN 1968

  • This is a contradictio in adjecto, in view of the derivation of literature from littera, but is a needed term since the oral tradition is

    LITERATURE AND ITS COGNATES REN 1968

  • First of all, totalitarian regimes deny the right of existence to competing political parties and groups as well as to individual freedom; tolerating autonomous sectors of life and culture would be a contradictio in adjecto.

    TOTALITARIANISM KARL DIETRICH BRACHER 1968

  • That the Chronicler draws from this narrative is certain on general grounds, and is shown particularly by this, that he designates the tabernacle at Gibeon by the name of Bamah -- a contradictio in adjecto which is only to be explained by the desire to give an authentic interpretation of "the great Bamah at Gibeon" in 1Kings iii.

    Prolegomena Julius Wellhausen 1881

  • If this unity was destroyed, if Satan were to accomplish the same good as that wrought by the power of God, it would be a contradictio in adjecto; the kingdom of evil would be ipso facto subverted.

    The Life of Jesus Christ in Its Historical Connexion and Historical Developement. 1789-1850 1870

  • The question which would be thus started is one of not unfrequent recurrence, and it is very worthy of observation how often, so soon as we take note of etymologies, this _contradictio in adjecto_ is found to occur.

    English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846

  • Consistency and inconsistency might be taken as properties of sentences, or theories (sets of sentences closed under logical consequence), or propositions (what sentences express), or maybe thoughts, or (sets of) beliefs, etc. Contradiction (Widerspruch, the Latin contradictio) has to do with discourse (diction, sprechen, dicere).

    Dialetheism Priest, Graham 2008

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.