Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to an oxymoron, in which contradictory terms are combined.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

oxymoron +‎ -ic

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Examples

  • Breath and vibration, breaking into this silent visual scene, suggest that something speechlike has happened to the representation of the Poet's desire, in oxymoronic tension with the "mute thoughts on the mute walls around" (120).

    _Alastor_, Apostasy, and the Ecology of Criticism 1999

  • To put the words "efficiency" and the EU in the same sentence can only be described as oxymoronic or, if you like, simply moronic.

    And so they drivel on Richard 2005

  • I was wondering what idiot coined the oxymoronic "socialist-conservative," then I saw it was you, of course, trying to put a lame liberal spin on what your socialist-loving buddies are doing down in Arizona.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2010

  • I was wondering what idiot coined the oxymoronic "socialist-conservative," then I saw it was you, of course, trying to put a lame liberal spin on what your socialist-loving buddies are doing down in Arizona.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2010

  • I was wondering what idiot coined the oxymoronic "socialist-conservative," then I saw it was you, of course, trying to put a lame liberal spin on what your socialist-loving buddies are doing down in Arizona.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2010

  • I was wondering what idiot coined the oxymoronic "socialist-conservative," then I saw it was you, of course, trying to put a lame liberal spin on what your socialist-loving buddies are doing down in Arizona.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2010

  • I was wondering what idiot coined the oxymoronic "socialist-conservative," then I saw it was you, of course, trying to put a lame liberal spin on what your socialist-loving buddies are doing down in Arizona.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2010

  • I was wondering what idiot coined the oxymoronic "socialist-conservative," then I saw it was you, of course, trying to put a lame liberal spin on what your socialist-loving buddies are doing down in Arizona.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2010

  • "Conservative rebel" is almost oxymoronic, which is why William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan stood out so much.

    Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor 2008

  • The term is kind of oxymoronic, since it is clear that by resorting to war and to threats of war, and by squandering unprecedented sums of money on the military, eight years of bellicosity has not made the nation more secure.

    Foreign Policy and National Security Are Not the Same Thing 2008

Comments

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  • I've heard of some really clever oxymorons, but they are still described as oxymoronic. How does that work?

    May 12, 2009